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Information for Linux Users
Orest Zborowski, Dirk Hohndel
June 25, 1999
1. Linux versions on which XFree86 has been tested
XFree86 has been tested with Linux version 2.0.36, 2.2.7 and several 2.3.x
kernels. It should work with any version since 1.0 without change. Binaries
both against libc5 and libc6 are available.
2. Backwards Compatibility
X11R6 is considered a major update from X11R5, so the shared libraries in
XFree86 3.1 and later are not compatible with XFree86 2.1.1 and older
libraries. To continue to run X11R5 applications, you must keep the old
libraries somewhere on your machine. They can be moved from /usr/X386/lib
elsewhere, but /etc/ld.so.conf must be updated. All X11R5 applications
should work with the X11R6 servers without problems.
X11R6.1 is yet another update to X11R6. While the minor number for some
libraries has been increased to '1' it is believed to be fully compatible
with X11R6 based applications.
X11R6.3 is yet another update to X11R6.1. While the minor number for some
libraries has been increased to '3' it is believed to be fully compatible
with X11R6 based applications.
Very old binaries (linked to XFree86-1.2, XFree86-1.3 or XFree86-2.0
libraries) will continue to work, but may need an explicit symlink from
/lib/libX{11,t,aw}.so.3 to /usr/X386/lib/libX{11,t,aw}.so.3.
3. Installing XFree86
Starting with version 3.0, XFree86 is installed in /usr/X11R6. The installa-
tion details are provided in the RELNOTES.
4. Running XFree86
XFree86 requires about 4mb of virtual memory to run, although having 16mb of
RAM is probably the minimum comfortable configuration. A 387 coprocessor is
helpful for 386 machines, although greater gains in interactive performance
are obtained with an increase in physical memory. Also, a faster graphics
card, bus or RAM, will improve server performance.
After unpacking the tar files, you need to include /usr/X11R6/lib in
/etc/ld.so.conf (where it should already be by default) or in your
LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. Also, the configuration file
/etc/XF86Config or /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XF86Config must be properly filled out
based on the host setup. Ideally this is done using XF86Setup or (if for some
reason this doesn't work) using xf86config. If you really insist in hand-cre-
ating your config file use XF86Config.eg as a starting point and README.Con-
fig as guideline. You may damage your hardware if you use a wrong XF86Config
file, so read the docs, especially the man pages and the other README files
in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/doc.
XFree86 has the ability to perform VT switching to and from the X server.
When first started, XFree86 will automatically locate the first available VT
(one that hasn't been opened by any process), and run on that VT. If there
isn't one available, XFree86 will terminate with an error message. The
server can be run on a specific VT by using the ``vt<nn>'' option, where <nn>
is the number of an available VT (starting from 1). If you don't have a free
VT XFree86 cannot run. Normally you can simply disable one of the getty pro-
grams in /etc/inittab, but if this is not an option, you can increase the
number of available VTs by increasing the value of NR_CONSOLES in
include/linux/tty.h and recompiling the kernel.
Once running inside X, switching to another VT is accomplished by pressing
Ctrl-Alt-<Fnn> where nn is the number of the VT to switch to. To return to
the server, press the proper key-combination that moves you back to the VT
that XFree86 is using: by default, this is Alt-<Fmm>, where mm is the number
of the VT the server is running on (this number is printed when the server is
started). Note that this is NOT the VT from which the server was started.
NOTE: you can redefine the text-mode keybindings with the `loadkeys' command
found in the kbd-0.81.tar.gz archive (or a later version thereof). With
this, you can (for example) make Ctrl-Alt-<Fmm> work from text mode the same
way it works under the XFree86 server.
When the server is exited, it will return to the original VT it was started
from, unless it dies unexpectedly, when the switch must be done manually.
There still seem to be weird combinations of graphic cards and motherboards
that have problems to restore the textfont when returning from XFree86 to the
text mode. In these cases using the runx script from the svgalib distribution
might help.
The XFree86 server now queries the kernel to obtain the key binding in effect
at startup. These bindings are either the default map in place when the ker-
nel was compiled, or reloaded using the `loadkeys' utility. Not all keys are
bound: kernel-specific, multiple keysym, and dead keys are not handled by the
server. All others are translated to their X equivalents. Note that the
XFree86 server only allows for four modifier maps: unshifted, shifted, mod-
eswitch unshifted and modeswitch shifted. Depending on what the modeswitch
key is (it is configurable in your XF86Config and defaults to Alt), XFree86
will read those tables into its keymaps. This means if you use certain keys,
like left-Control, for Linux modeswitch, that will not be mappable to X.
5. Installing Xdm, the display manager
Since xdm is dynamically linked, there's no issue on export restriction out-
side US for this binary distribution of xdm: it does not contain the DES
encryption code. So it's now included in the bin package.
However the file xc/lib/Xdmcp/WrapHelp.c is not included in the XFree86-3.3
source, so support for XDM-AUTHORIZATION-1 is not included here. You'll have
to get WrapHelp.c and rebuild xdm after having set HasXdmAuth in
xf86site.def.
The file is available within the US; for details see ftp.x.org:/pub/R6/xdm-
auth/README.
To start the display manager, log in as root on the console and type: ``xdm
-nodaemon''.
You can start xdm automatically on bootup by disabling the console getty and
modifying /etc/inittab. Details about this setup depend on the Linux distri-
bution that you use, so check the documentation provided there.
The xdm binary provided should run with both shadow- and non-shadow password
systems.
Generated from XFree86: xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/doc/sgml/Linux.sgml,v 3.14 1999/08/23 06:38:46 dawes Exp $
$XConsortium: Linux.sgml /main/6 1996/10/28 04:47:37 kaleb $
$XFree86$
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