X Window System User's Guide for X11 R3 and R4 of the X Window System

11

Setup Clients

This chapter discusses how to set up certain features of your working environment, using the following clients:

xset	To set certain characteristics of the keyboard, pointer and display.
xsetroot	To set root window characteristics.
xmodmap	To change pointer and modifier key mappings.

xset: Setting Display and Keyboard Preferences

The xset client allows you to set an assortment of user preference options for the display and keyboard. Some of these are followed by on or off to set or unset the option. Note that xset is inconsistent in its use of a dash (–)as an option flag. Some options use a preceding “–” to indicate that a feature be disabled; this can be confusing at first to users accustomed to seeing “–” as an introductory symbol on all options.

Although xset can be run any time, it is suggested that you run it at startup. These settings reset to the default values when you log out. Not all X implementations are guaranteed to honor all of these options.

Keyboard Bell

The b option controls bell volume (as a percentage of its maximum), pitch (in hertz), and duration (in milliseconds). It accepts up to three numerical parameters:

b volume pitch duration

If no parameters are given, the system defaults are used. If only one parameter is given, the bell volume is set to that value. If two values are listed, the second parameter specifies the bell pitch. If three values are listed, the third one specifies the duration.

For example, the command:

%