When you add or change the graphics devices used in your system after the initial installation, you must configure those devices. Adding or changing the display for your system can be as simple as swapping out the monitor or replacing a display adapter. For Intel-based PCs, this can mean switching from the use of the motherboard's built-in display adapter (if available)by inserting a graphics card in the accelerated graphics port (AGP) or peripheral component interface (PCI) slotor perhaps adding a second display adapter to support the use of multiple display monitors for X sessions. Although a display monitor can be easily disconnected or reattached to a running system, insertion or removal of a graphics display adapter will require downtimethe bane of academic, enterprise, corporate, or small-business operations.
Your Fedora desktop is provided by the X Window System, a client and server software package that is configured to use your computer's video card, monitor, keyboard, and mouse. If you use the graphical desktop and kudzu (discussed earlier in this chapter) and change your graphics card, monitor, keyboard, or mouse, you might be asked to remove existing hardware configuration and reconfigure the new equipment the next time you boot. The details about configuring X.org for Linux are covered in Chapter 6, but the basic utility used to configure a new xorg.conf file is system-config-display, Fedora's graphical X configuration tool. You can also use Xorg -configure, which can generate an xorg.conf file by probing installed hardware. Note Connecting and using an external monitor with a notebook can be convenient, especially if the external monitor provides a larger desktop than the notebook's built-in display. However, configuring an external display for a notebook can sometimes be a problem when using X11. The notebook's graphics chipset must be supported by an X.org driver module, and the module must enable switching or concurrent use of an external monitor. Fortunately, many notebook chipsets are supported, and some notebook manufacturers provide support information for configuring external displays. For example, if your notebook has a Neomagic chipset, use the internDisp and externDisp options in the notebook's xorg.conf to enable use of an external display. Keep in mind that although Red Hat encourages and supports X.org development efforts, the X.Org Foundation LLC controls X.org development and X graphics support. See Chapter 6 for more information about Linux and X11. Fortunately, creating a working xorg.conf file (found in the directory /etc/X11) is usually easily accomplished when installing Fedora. If a new video card or monitor is put in use before installation, it will most likely work because X.org supports many families and types of graphics chipsets. Although newer graphics chipsets might cause some display compatibility problems, it is usually possible to configure a basic working display using existing software. The X.Org Foundation and contributing developers do a great job of providing software that works with nearly every product on the market. If you are experiencing X11 configuration problems during installation, skip the configuration. Various README files with specifics about a particular chipset are included with X.org and you should also check the X.Org Foundation website (see the "Reference" section at the end of this chapter) for any errata, changes, updates, or new releases. Tip Before running any X configuration tool, be sure to make a copy or back up any working xorg.conf configuration file. |