Running Linux, 5th Edition

Installing X.org

X.org does not provide any binary distributions, but you should be able to run those that come with your distribution just fine. On ftp://ftp.x.org/pub/X11R6.8.2/src, you can find the full source code, including instructions on how to build binaries yourself, if you really want to. (Of course, the version number of the latest version could have changed by the time you read this.)

Writing an X configuration file (called either XF86Config-4 or xorg.conf, depending on version and distribution) from scratch is a daunting undertaking, and not to be recommended. This section lists three ways of getting at least a start at a configuration file; using the documentation in this chapter, you should be able to change this to match your system in the optimal way.

The first thing you should try (after having tried your distribution's setup tool, of course) is a program called xorgcfg that ships with X.org. This is a graphical installation program that works even from the terminal, so that you can use it if you do not have any X set up yet.

If xorgcfg should fail you, your next bet would be the command already mentioned, Xorg -configure. This fires up the X server in a mode where it attempts to find out as much as possible about your hardware and writes a skeleton configuration file. This skeleton configuration might be sufficient to start up the X server, even though you may want to tune this to your needs.

If even Xorg -configure fails you (which, honestly, is quite unlikely), ...