Hour 3

Configuring the X Window System

This hour looks at getting your X11 Window system up and running.
X Window is the graphical windowing system that Linux and many other UNIX systems use. It is analogous to the windowing environment in Windows, OS/2, or Macintosh.

One of the differences between X11 Window and the other environments is that it was designed to be a machine/OS independent networked client/server program. As a result, the system is broken up into two major components: the X11 Window server that runs on the machine and interacts directly with the monitor and the video card, and the various clients that are displayed on the X11 server. These clients can range from terminal emulators (xterm) to eye candy (xpat2), or can manage the look and feel of the screen (the X11 Window Manager).

This hour begins by setting up the X Window system server that was skipped during the install, and finishes up by familiarizing you with the look and feel of the default windows that Red Hat offers. A later hour deals with customizing

the system to different personal tastes. You need any documentation you have on your computer's video card and its monitor.

Checking Your Installation Files

The default X Window server that most Linux boxes come with (and the one on this book's CD) is supplied by the XFree86 Project. Other servers are provided from various commercial vendors and are discussed later in the hour.

First, check to make sure all of the files you need were installed during Hour 2, "Installing Linux." To see what X11 packages have been installed on the machine, you need to use the rpm command and pipe it through the grep command to find the lines that begin with X. The commands are covered in more detail throughout the rest of the book. If you enter the command

rpm -qa | grep ^X

you should receive output similar to the following:

X11R6-contrib-3.3.1-1

Xaw3d-1.3-13

Xconfigurator-3.25-1

XFree86-3.3.1-14

XFree86-75dpi-fonts-3.3.1-14

XFree86-libs-3.3.1-14

Xfree86-S3-3.3.1.14

You're seeing what groups of packages were installed on the system. If you don't get any output but another hash prompt, there were no packages installed on the machine that begin with the letter X. If you don't get a list similar to the preceding one you need to install some extra packages to the system to get X11 up and running.

Installing the X Files

In order to install the files you need, you must load the CD-ROM for Linux to see it, then get data off of it.

Insert the Red Hat CD-ROM and at the # prompt type the following:

mount /mnt/cdrom

After a few seconds you should see some activity on the CD-ROM and the # prompt, letting you know that you can continue. Change your current working directory to that of the
CD-ROM's RPM area by typing the following command:

cd /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPMS

Further data, configuration options, and bug tips can be found at the following site:

http://www.xfree86.org

If no X items were installed, you need to install several RPM packages by using the rpm command. At the prompt, type the following commands one at a time, pressing Enter after each:

rpm -ivh X11R6-contrib*

rpm -ivh Xaw3d-1.3*

rpm -ivh Xconfig*

rpm -ivh XFree86-3*

rpm -ivh XFree86-75*

rpm -ivh XFree86-libs*

The preceding command lines will install everything you need except for the X server, which supports your specific video card. To install the correct server type in the following:

rpm _ivh Xfree86-YY*

Replace YY in your command line with the server name for your video card. Table 3.1 gives you a brief rundown of the servers and what chipsets they support.

Table 3.1. X servers shipped with Red Hat 5.0.

                                                          continues

Table 3.1. continued

Using Xconfigurator to Set Up X Window

At the # prompt, run the Xconfigurator command. You will get a welcome screen with an Ok button at the bottom, explaining the program.

Pressing Enter starts a PCI probe to see if Xconfigurator finds any video cards in your system. If it finds any, it shows which chipset and which X server need to be used. Pay special attention to this—if you installed the incorrect X server you are given the opportunity to correct your mistake. See Figure 3.1 for an example of the output when Xconfigurator successfully probes for a card. If the program can't find a card when probing, it brings up

Figure 3.1.
Pay special attention to
the information in this
screen.