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Setting Up XFree86
Because there’s so much variety in PC graphics hardware and because doing something wrong can actually destroy your hardware (in theory, anyway; we’re rather credulous of tales of exploding monitors and such), XFree86 ships in a mode that prevents you from running X. This fact strikes us as bizarre, but setting up X is probably the hardest thing you have to do to get Linux up and running.
Before you start setting up XFree86, track down every piece of documentation that came with your monitor and graphics card. You’ll need to know some obscure values about your monitor, such as the horizontal and vertical frequency ranges.
If you can’t find any of this information, you may want to pop open the machine and check the text written on your graphics card—there’s often a lot of useful information there. Even if this fails and you can’t find out anything about your graphics card, you still have a chance to run X. If your graphics card can support standard Super VGA, you should be able to use the example XF86Config file that comes with XFree86.
We list the graphics cards supported by XFree86 in Tables 3.3 and 3.4. Table 3.3 lists the accelerated chipsets and Table 3.4 the Super VGA chipsets.
| Type | Chips and Cards |
|---|---|
| 8514/A | 8514/A and true clones |
| ATI | Mach8, Mach32, Mach64 |
| Cirrus | CLGD5420, CLGD5422, CLGD5424, CLGD5426, CLGD5428, CLGD5429, CLGD5430, CLGD5434 |
| IBM | XGA-2 |
| IIT | AGX-014, AGX-015, AGX-016 |
| Oak Tech. | OTI087 |
| S3 | 86C911, 86C924, 86C801, 86C805, 86C805i, 86C928, 86C864, 86C964, 86C732, 86C764, 86C868, 86C968 |
| Tseng | ET4000/W32, ET4000/W32i, ET4000/W32p |
| Weitek | P9000 |
| Western Digital | WD90C31, WD90C33 |
The Cirrus, Oak, and Western Digital cards are supported in the Super VGA server, XF86_SVGA. The other types each have their own X server.
The Super VGA server, XF86_SVGA, supports a whole range of graphics cards and chipsets, which are listed in Table 3.4.
| Vendor | Chipsets |
|---|---|
| ARK Logic | ARK1000PV, ARK2000PV |
| ATI | 18800, 18800-1, 28800-2, 28800-4, 28800-5, 28800-6, 68800-3, 68800-6, 68800AX, 68800LX, 88800CX, 88800 |
| Advance Logic | ALG2101, ALG2228, ALG2301, ALG2302, ALG2308, ALG2401 |
| Chips & Technology | 65520, 65530, 65540, 65545 |
| Cirrus Logic | CLGD5420, CLGD5422, CLGD5424, CLGD5426, CLGD5428, CLGD5429, CLGD5430, CLGD5434, CLGD6205, CLGD6215, CLGD6225, CLGD6235, CLGD6410, CLGD6412, CLGD6420, CLGD6440 |
| Compaq | AVGA |
| Genoa | GVGA |
| MX | MX68000, MX680010 |
| NCR | 77C22, 77C22E, 77C22E+ |
| Oak | OTI067, OTI077, OTI087 |
| RealTek | RTG3106 |
| Tseng | ET3000, ET4000AX, ET4000/W32 |
| Western Digital/Paradise | PVGA1 |
| Western Digital | WD90C00, WD90C10, WD90C11, WD90C24, WD90C24A, WD90C30, WD90C31, WD90C33 |
| Trident | TVGA8800CS, TVGA8900B, TVGA8900C, TVGA8900CL, TVGA9000, TVGA9000i, TVGA9100B, TVGA9200CX, TVGA9320, TVGA9400CX, TVGA9420 |
| Video 7/Headland Technologies | HT216-32 |
NOTE: Each release of XFree86 supports more and more cards. If your card or chipset isn’t listed here, don’t give up hope. You may need to get a new release of XFree86, though. (When this book was written, the most recent release of XFree86 was 3.2, and that’s the version on the accompanying CD-ROM.)
To see which chipset your graphics card uses, you’ll need to look in the documentation that came with your graphics card.
You’ll need about 50MB of disk space for XFree86, and you should have at least 16MB of RAM to run X effectively. You can launch X and perform some basic functions with 8MB of RAM, but you’ll soon run into some performance problems with limited RAM. To compound matters, you won’t be told that you’re running low on RAM; your chosen X window manager will simply fail to respond to your commands.
Once you’ve determined your system configuration, the next step is to set up the proper X server for your graphics card. XFree86 ships with a number of X servers, each compiled with drivers for a certain type of graphics card or chipset. Each of these X server executables usually starts with XF86_ and ends with the type of cards supported. For example, the XF86_SVGA X server is built with support for standard Super VGA chipsets. XF86_S3 is the X server for S3-based graphics cards.
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