Configuring X11 with the xorgconfig Script
Configuring X11 with the xorgconfig ScriptDuring the initial setup of FreeBSD you performed in Chapter 2, "Installing FreeBSD," you used the full-screen xorgcfg program to set up a basic hardware configuration for your X11 server. Because of the variety of video cards and displays in the world today, and because X11 configuration is in many ways more art than science, it's entirely possible that xorgcfg alone was not able to get X11 set up properly for your computer. Perhaps you couldn't get X11 to run at any higher resolution than 640x480, or perhaps you can't do any better than 8-bit color (256 colors). Perhaps you couldn't find an appropriate video driver in the xorgcfg database, and you had to guess. Or, perhaps, X11 won't start at all, and keeps cycling between several flickery or unstable graphics modes and never finds one that's stable. There's another configuration script in Xorg that might help: xorgconfig. This tool is a linear script that asks you a series of questions and configures X11 based on the answers you provide; it's more difficult to use than xorgcfg, and much of it seems to duplicate the questions xorgcfg asks, but it does have a significantly better set of video chipsets and drivers from which to choose, and it might do a better job recommending an appropriate combination of refresh rates and color depths for your hardware. Caution Improper use of this tool when configuring video settings could actually cause physical damage to your hardware. Although most modern monitors have built-in protection circuits and will shut themselves down if you try to drive them with a refresh rate higher than they support, some monitors will try to display the screen at the specified refresh rate, even if the monitor's hardware is not capable of handling it. The result could destroy your monitor. Caution The xorgconfig program will overwrite your existing xorg.conf file. If you have a working xorg.conf file and you want to experiment with a new configuration, you should back up your existing file first. The file is located in /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Make a copy of this file to /etc/xorg.conf.bak (or some similar name) before continuing. This way, you can restore your previous configuration easily if your new configuration does not work by simply copying the backup file back to /etc/X11/xorg.conf. You will need to be root to use this program. As the root user, type xorgconfig at the command prompt and press Enter. You will see a screen like the following: This program will create a basic xorg.conf file, based on menu selections you make. The xorg.conf file usually resides in /usr/X11R6/etc/X11 or /etc/X11. A sample xorg.conf file is supplied with Xorg; it is configured for a standard VGA card and monitor with 640x480 resolution. This program will ask for a pathname when it is ready to write the file. You can either take the sample xorg.conf as a base and edit it for your configuration, or let this program produce a base xorg.conf file for your configuration and fine-tune it. Before continuing with this program, make sure you know what video card you have, and preferably also the chipset it uses and the amount of video memory on your video card. SuperProbe may be able to help with this. Press enter to continue, or ctrl-c to abort. After you have read the information, simply press Enter to continue. The first thing you will be asked to configure is your mouse. Caution Double-check your typing when entering values in xorgconfig. The program is not very forgiving of mistakes and typos. If you accidentally make a wrong entry and don't catch it before you have pressed Enter, there is no way to back up and fix it. You will have to press Ctrl+C to exit the program and then start over again completely. Configuring the MouseCaution PS/2 mice are notoriously finicky in many ways. A common problem is that the motherboard and operating system won't recognize a mouse that you plug in after the machine has been booted; but a more serious risk is that the motherboard might short out if you unplug the mouse while the machine is running. Always be sure to have all your non-USB devices plugged in before booting the computer, and leave them connected for the duration. The mouse-configuration screen of xorgconfig looks like this: First specify a mouse protocol type. Choose one from the following list: 1. Auto 2. SysMouse 3. MouseSystems 4. PS/2 5. Microsoft 6. Busmouse 7. AceCad 8. GlidePoint 9. IntelliMouse 10. Logitech 11. MMHitTab 12. MMSeries 13. MouseMan 14. ThinkingMouse The recommended protocol is Auto. If you have a very old mouse or don't want OS support or auto detection, and you have a two-button or three-button serial mouse, it is most likely of type Microsoft. Enter a protocol number: Simply enter the number representing the type of mouse you have and press Enter. In most circumstances, and with most standard PS/2 or USB mice, selecting 1 (Auto) is the best solution, especially if you were able to get your mouse working using the Auto setting in Sysinstall or xorgcfg. If you weren't, here are some guidelines for determining what type of mouse you have:
After you have entered the number for the type of mouse you have and pressed Enter, you will be asked the following: If your mouse has only two buttons, it is recommended that you enable Emulate3Buttons. Please answer the following question with either 'y' or 'n'. Do you want to enable Emulate3Buttons? The first line of this message really should read "If your mouse has only two buttons, it is required (rather than recommended) that you enable Emulate3Buttons." Most window managers in X11 make use of all three buttons on the mouse, and some (such as Window Maker) depend on the middle button for accessing important menus. If you have a two-button mouse, you need to answer Y here; doing so will cause clicking both mouse buttons at the same time to emulate clicking the middle button on a three-button mouse. You will then be asked to give the name of the device the mouse is on: Now give the full device name that the mouse is connected to, for example /dev/tty00. Just pressing enter will use the default, /dev/sysmouse. Mouse device: If you selected Auto for the mouse type, or if you were able to use your mouse properly when configuring it in Sysinstall or xorgcfg, just press Enter here to use the default system mouse driver. Otherwise, unless you have symlinked the actual device your mouse is on to /dev/sysmouse, you will need to enter the name of that device here. Table 7.1 shows guidelines on what you should enter, depending on what type of mouse you have.
Enter the corresponding mouse device name at the prompt and then press Enter. Selecting the KeyboardThe next screen will ask you to select the type of keyboard you have: Please select one of the following keyboard types that is the better description of your keyboard. If nothing really matches, choose "Generic 104-key PC" 1 Generic 101-key PC 2 Generic 102-key (Intl) PC 3 Generic 104-key PC 4 Generic 105-key (Intl) PC 5 Dell 101-key PC 6 Everex STEPnote 7 Keytronic FlexPro 8 Microsoft Natural 9 Northgate OmniKey 101 10 Winbook Model XP5 11 Japanese 106-key 12 PC-98xx Series 13 Brazilian ABNT2 14 Acer AirKey V 15 ACPI Standard 16 Azona RF2300 wireless Internet Keyboard Enter a number to choose the keyboard. Tip On some systems, you might not be able to see the top part of the keyboard list. If this is the case, you will need to press Enter several times until you have cycled through the entire list and returned to the beginning. Notice that although only 16 keyboard types are immediately visible, there are actually 93 specific keyboard models listed in xorgconfig at the time of this writing, and the list of available keyboard layouts is too long to fit on one screen. Press Enter to see the next screenful of layouts. If you press Enter again at the end of the list, the display returns to the beginning of the list. If you have a U.S. keyboard, select 1 or 3 here and press Enter. You will then be asked to select the layout by language: 1 U.S. English 2 U.S. English w/ ISO9995-3 3 U.S. English w/ deadkeys 4 Albanian 5 Arabic 6 Armenian 7 Azerbaijani 8 Belarusian 9 Belgian 10 Bengali 11 Bosnian 12 Brazilian 13 Bulgarian 14 Burmese 15 Canadian 16 French Canadian 17 Croatian 18 Croatian (US) Enter a number to choose the country. Again, press Enter to scroll through the 90 available region-specific layouts. U.S. users will likely want to choose 1. You're then asked the following: Please enter a variant name for 'us' layout. Or just press enter for default variant There's generally no need to enter anything special here; just press Enter to proceed to the next question: Please answer the following question with either 'y' or 'n'. Do you want to select additional XKB options (group switcher, group indicator, etc.)? Enter N here unless you want to remap some keys. If you do want to remap some keys (or you just want to see what remapping options are available), press Y. This action presents a couple of menus in which you can do various things, such as make the Caps Lock key into a Ctrl key (useful for Emacs gurus) or swap the Caps Lock key with the Ctrl key. Enter the number of an option you want to perform and then press Enter. If you want to exit the menu without doing anything, simply press Enter without selecting a number first. Configuring the MonitorIn this section of the configuration program, you configure various aspects of your monitor, including the horizontal and vertical refresh rates. Caution The next few questions in the configuration are the parts that could potentially damage your monitor if you don't configure them correctly. Make sure you do not select frequency ranges higher than your monitor can support. Consult your monitor documentation for more information on the refresh rates that your monitor can support. You first see this screen: Now we want to set the specifications of the monitor. The two critical parameters are the vertical refresh rate, which is the rate at which the whole screen is refreshed, and most importantly the horizontal sync rate, which is the rate at which scanlines are displayed. The valid range for horizontal sync and vertical sync should be documented in the manual of your monitor. Press enter to continue, or ctrl-c to abort. Press Enter at this message to continue. If you haven't done so already, take this opportunity to locate the manual for your monitor (or look up its specifications online) and determine its vertical and horizontal sync ranges. Even LCD monitors have sync frequencies. One excellent resource for finding the specifications of popular monitors from all manufacturers is located at http://www.monitorworld.com/Monitors/. Tip If you can't find the sync information in your monitor's manual, and you can't find an entry in the MonitorWorld.com database, there's one more method you can try. If you've used this monitor in Windows, or if you can hook it up to a Windows machine, you can determine the refresh rate by looking at the Display Properties panel; select the Settings tab, click Advanced, and then click the Monitor tab to see what refresh rates Windows knows about for your monitor. When you've found what your monitor's horizontal sync range is, look it up in the list presented by the script: You must indicate the horizontal sync range of your monitor. You can either select one of the predefined ranges below that correspond to industry- standard monitor types, or give a specific range. It is VERY IMPORTANT that you do not specify a monitor type with a horizontal sync range that is beyond the capabilities of your monitor. If in doubt, choose a conservative setting. hsync in kHz; monitor type with characteristic modes 1 31.5; Standard VGA, 640x480 @ 60 Hz 2 31.5 - 35.1; Super VGA, 800x600 @ 56 Hz 3 31.5, 35.5; 8514 Compatible, 1024x768 @ 87 Hz interlaced (no 800x600) 4 31.5, 35.15, 35.5; Super VGA, 1024x768 @ 87 Hz interlaced, 800x600 @ 56 Hz 5 31.5 - 37.9; Extended Super VGA, 800x600 @ 60 Hz, 640x480 @ 72 Hz 6 31.5 - 48.5; Non-Interlaced SVGA, 1024x768 @ 60 Hz, 800x600 @ 72 Hz 7 31.5 - 57.0; High Frequency SVGA, 1024x768 @ 70 Hz 8 31.5 - 64.3; Monitor that can do 1280x1024 @ 60 Hz 9 31.5 - 79.0; Monitor that can do 1280x1024 @ 74 Hz 10 31.5 - 82.0; Monitor that can do 1280x1024 @ 76 Hz 11 Enter your own horizontal sync range Enter your choice (1-11): If you know the exact horizontal frequency range that your monitor can support, select 11 to enter the range manually. Otherwise, select a predefined range that does not exceed the range you know your monitor is capable of. In other words, make sure you select a narrower range than you know the monitor can handle, to ensure you won't be pushing it beyond its limits. After you have selected one of the predefined entries or entered your monitor's horizontal sync range, press Enter to move to the next screen, where you will be asked to set the vertical refresh rate: You must indicate the vertical sync range of your monitor. You can either select one of the predefined ranges below that correspond to industry- standard monitor types, or give a specific range. For interlaced modes, the number that counts is the high one (e.g. 87 Hz rather than 43 Hz). 1 50-70 2 50-90 3 50-100 4 40-150 5 Enter your own vertical sync range Enter your choice: Once again, it is very important that you do not select a refresh rate higher than your monitor can handle; otherwise, you may cause damage to your monitor. If you know the vertical refresh rate for your monitor, select 5 and then enter the refresh range for your monitor. Otherwise, you can select one of the first four predefined ranges, again making sure it doesn't exceed the range you know the monitor can handle from its experience with Windows. Press Enter after you have made your selection to continue on to the next screen: You must now enter a few identification/description strings, namely an identifier, a vendor name, and a model name. Just pressing enter will fill in default names. The strings are free-form, spaces are allowed. Enter an identifier for your monitor definition: This is the information that will show up in the xorg.conf file that the program will generate after you have finished entering all the values. All you're doing here is defining some labels to help you decipher the option blocks in the configuration file; the names don't have to conform to any particular standard. You can just press Enter here to let xorgconfig use default names such as My Monitor. Configuring the Video CardNext, you will be given some information about configuring the video card. Press Y after you have read the informational screen; this gives you access to Xorg's complete card database. It will look like the following: 0 * Generic VESA compatible - 1 * Generic VGA compatible - 2 * Unsupported VGA compatible - 3 ** 3DLabs, TI (generic) [glint] - 4 ** 3Dfx (generic) [tdfx] - 5 ** ATI (generic) [ati] - 6 ** ATI Radeon (generic) [radeon] - 7 ** ATI Rage 128 based (generic) [r128] - 8 ** Alliance Pro Motion (generic) [apm] - 9 ** Ark Logic (generic) [ark] - 10 ** Chips and Technologies (generic) [chips] - 11 ** Cirrus Logic (generic) [cirrus] - 12 ** Cyrix MediaGX (generic) [cyrix] - 13 ** DEC TGA (generic) [tga] - 14 ** Intel i740 (generic) [i740] - 15 ** Intel i810 (generic) [i810] - 16 ** Linux framebuffer (generic) [fbdev] - 17 ** Matrox Graphics (generic) [mga] - Enter a number to choose the corresponding card definition. Press enter for the next page, q to continue configuration. Once again, there are far more cards listed in the database than can fit on one screen566 at the time of this writing. Press Enter to get to the next page. When you reach the end of the list, pressing Enter will start the list over at the first page. If you can't find your exact video card make and model number in this list, simply press Q to quit. Don't select a model just because its name sounds familiarmodels that have similar names do not necessarily have similar hardware or capabilities. However, the beginning of the list contains nearly 30 "generic" video drivers that you can select if your specific model isn't listed. For example, if you have an ATI Radeon 9200, and that particular ATI card model isn't in the list, simply scroll to the beginning of the list and choose option 6, which is a generic driver for all Radeon cards. If all else fails, choose option 0 or 1 to select a generic VESA or VGA driverit won't have a lot of capabilities, but it will be almost sure to work. If you do find the make and model of your video card in the list, enter its number and then press Enter. You will then receive information about the video card you selected. Here's an example: Your selected card definition: Identifier: Matrox Millennium G400 Chipset: mgag400 Driver: mga Do NOT probe clocks or use any Clocks line. Press enter to continue, or ctrl-c to abort. After you press Enter to continue, you are asked to give some more information about your video card, starting with the amount of RAM it contains: Now you must give information about your video card. This will be used for the "Device" section of your video card in xorg.conf. It is probably a good idea to use the same approximate amount as that detected by the server you intend to use. If you encounter problems that are due to the used server not supporting the amount memory you have, specify the maximum amount supported by the server. How much video memory do you have on your video card: 1 256K 2 512K 3 1024K 4 2048K 5 4096K 6 Other 6 8192K 7 16384K 8 32768K 9 65536K 10 131072K 11 262144K 12 Other Enter your choice: The amount of video memory defines the resolution and color bit depth that your card will be able to support. Be sure you know the correct amount of video RAM available on your card; if you set this value too low, you won't be able to use some of the higher-resolution modes or take advantage of full color depthbut if you set it too high, X11 might try to set the card to a mode that it can't support. This won't damage the card, but it will take extra time each time you start X11 as it tries the invalid mode and falls back to a less ambitious one. Most modern video cards have 32MB or more of video RAM; this is enough so that 24-bit color (16.7 million colors) is possible even at the highest resolutions. The xorgconfig script lets you directly specify as much as 262144KB, which corresponds to 256MB of video RAM. If you know you have a different amount from any of the listed options, choose 12 and specify the number manually. Remember to use kilobytes; multiply the number of megabytes by 1,024 to get the number of kilobytes to enter. Press Enter to continue on to the next screen: You must now enter a few identification/description strings, namely an identifier, a vendor name, and a model name. Just pressing enter will fill in default names (possibly from a card definition). Your card definition is Matrox Millennium G400. The strings are free-form, spaces are allowed. Enter an identifier for your video card definition: If you selected a video card type from the card list, there will already be a suggested identification/description string listed here. I suggest that you accept the default that is given. If you couldn't find your card in the list, enter a brief description of your video card here and then press Enter. Depending on whether or not you selected a card definition from the database, you will be presented with a different set of questions. Read the appropriate upcoming section, depending on whether you did or did not select a card definition from the database. Selecting a Card from the Database and Saving the Configuration FileIf you selected a card definition from the database list, you will be presented with a menu of currently configured video modes. The following shows an example of what this might look like: For each depth, a list of modes (resolutions) is defined. The default resolution that the server will start-up with will be the first listed mode that can be supported by the monitor and card. Currently it is set to: "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" for 8-bit "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" for 16-bit "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" for 24-bit Modes that cannot be supported due to monitor or clock constraints will be automatically skipped by the server. 1 Change the modes for 8-bit (256 colors) 2 Change the modes for 16-bit (32K/64K colors) 3 Change the modes for 24-bit (24-bit color) 4 The modes are OK, continue. Enter your choice: You will probably want to make some changes here because, by default, X11 will start up in a resolution of 640x480, which is so small as to be virtually unusable. If you have a 17-inch monitor, you will probably want to go with at least 1024x768, and you may want to go even higher, depending on your needs. You'll be able to edit these settings at any time to adjust your display's resolution after you've used X11 enough to know how much screen real estate you'll need. Tip Of course, if you have an LCD monitor, you'll want to disable all video resolutions except for your monitor's native resolution. LCD monitors in interpolated resolutions usually look pretty bad. You will also want to decide what color depth to use. As a general rule, the higher the color depth, the better. If you have a small amount of video RAM, though, color depth and resolution may be a tradeoff. In general, you will not notice a difference in most applications between 24-bit and 16-bit color; however, the difference between 16-bit and 8-bit color is the difference between comfortable, seamless work and a constant barrage of palette shifts and dithered gradients. Although personal preference has to be the governing factor, here are my recommendations:
After you have decided on the default color depth you want to use, you will want to make changes to the mode line for that color depth (unless you plan on running 640x480 resolution by default, in which case you do not have to make any changes). Enter the number for the series of modes you want to adjust and then press Enter. For example, if you plan to run 24-bit color by default, you would select 3 in the sample screen given previously. This will take you to a screen similar to the following. Select modes from the following list: 1 "640x400" 2 "640x480" 3 "800x600" 4 "1024x768" 5 "1280x1024" 6 "320x200" 7 "320x240" 8 "400x300" 9 "1152x864" a "1600x1200" b "1800x1400" c "512x384" d "1400x1050" Please type the digits corresponding to the modes that you want to select. For example, 432 selects "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480", with a default mode of 1024x768. Which modes? Select the number corresponding to the default resolution that you want to use when X11 first starts up. For example, if you want X11 to start in 1024x768 resolution by default, select 4. If you want to be able to switch between different resolutions, you can enter multiple numbers here, in a combined string. The first number will be the default resolution, and the numbers listed after that will be cycled through in the order they are listed when you issue the command to change the screen resolution (generally Ctrl+Alt plus either the + or key on the numeric keypad). For example, if you want the default resolution to be 1024x768, the next resolution in the cycle to be 800x600, and the final resolution in the cycle to be 640x480, you would enter 432 here. Most people are not in the habit of changing the resolution on their screens at all once they have it initially set up. If you've never changed the screen resolution on your Windows or Macintosh system, chances are you won't in FreeBSD, either. Unless you anticipate having to flip back and forth between various resolutions for some reason, you can probably just set one resolution here. Tip While you're still experimenting with your X11 settings here, it might be a good idea to specify at least one "safety" resolution, such as 640x480 (option 2). This allows X11 to fall back to that resolution if it can't put your system into the resolution you want, for instance if you specified the wrong sync frequencies for your monitor or the wrong amount of video RAM. You can always remove this resolution option later by editing xorg.conf manually. When you have selected the resolution(s) that you want for this color depth, press Enter to continue. You will then be asked about virtual screens: You can have a virtual screen (desktop), which is screen area that is larger than the physical screen and which is panned by moving the mouse to the edge of the screen. If you don't want virtual desktop at a certain resolution, you cannot have modes listed that are larger. Each color depth can have a differently-sized virtual screen Please answer the following question with either 'y' or 'n'. Do you want a virtual screen that is larger than the physical screen? A virtual screen that is larger than the physical screen (a traditional X11 feature that isn't widely supported in the Windows/Mac world) means that your monitor, which may be limited in resolution, only displays a subset of X11's desktop area; you'll be able to pan across the virtual screen by moving your mouse to the edges of the displayed area. Note For many users, virtual screens are more annoying than their utility is worth, as working with them can be very clumsy and inefficient; most users avoid the feature unless forced by a limited video card to use a very low resolution (such as 640x480). However, for users with limited visual acuity, the feature can be a godsendit lets you use a low, very readable screen resolution to make text large and legible, and lets you pan around the screen to see the entirety of the desktop, in a passable emulation of the Zoom feature in Mac OS X (itself designed for accessibility purposes). If you do decide that you want a virtual screen, you will be asked for the resolution you want the screen to be. Select the desired resolution and press Enter. If you decide you do not want a virtual screen, you will be taken back to the mode line configuration screen shown earlier. The newly updated screen, with its currently configured mode lines, is shown here: For each depth, a list of modes (resolutions) is defined. The default resolution that the server will start-up with will be the first listed mode that can be supported by the monitor and card. Currently it is set to: "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" for 8-bit "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" for 16-bit "1024x768" for 24-bit Modes that cannot be supported due to monitor or clock constraints will be automatically skipped by the server. 1 Change the modes for 8-bit (256 colors) 2 Change the modes for 16-bit (32K/64K colors) 3 Change the modes for 24-bit (24-bit color) 4 The modes are OK, continue. Enter your choice: Notice that the mode lines for 24-bit color have changed. It now has only 1024x768 resolution. Unless you plan to run multiple color depths, you can leave the other color depths alone. If you do plan to switch between color depths, simply select the number for the next color depth you want to configure and repeat the previous steps to configure the resolutions for that color. When you have finished configuring all the modes you want to configure, select 4 (The Modes Are OK, Continue) to move on to the next section. You will then be asked to specify the default color depth you want to use: Please specify which color depth you want to use by default: 1 1 bit (monochrome) 2 4 bits (16 colors) 3 8 bits (256 colors) 4 16 bits (65536 colors) 5 24 bits (16 million colors) Enter a number to choose the default depth. Simply select the number for the color depth you decided on earlier and then press Enter. After you have selected the desired color depth, you will be asked whether you want to save the changes: I am going to write the xorg.conf file now. Make sure you don't accidentally overwrite a previously configured one. Shall I write it to /etc/X11/xorg.conf? Select Y to write a new xorg.conf file. If you already have an xorg.conf file, it will be overwritten with the new file. After you have selected Y and pressed Enter, xorgconfig will respond with the following: File has been written. Take a look at it before running 'startx'. Note that the xorg.conf file must be in one of the directories searched by the server (e.g. /etc/X11) in order to be used. Within the server press ctrl, alt and '+' simultaneously to cycle video resolutions. Pressing ctrl, alt and backspace simultaneously immediately exits the server (use if the monitor doesn't sync for a particular mode). For further configuration, refer to the xorg.conf(5) manual page. At this point you're done with the script and will be returned to the command prompt. Your xorg.conf file has been written and its operation is ready to test. Skip ahead to the section "Testing the X11 Setup." Configuring a Card That Is Not in the Database and Saving the Configuration FileIf you did not select one of the cards from the card list database (if you pressed Q instead of choosing a listed card driver), the first question you will be asked is how much video memory your card has: Now you must give information about your video card. This will be used for the "Device" section of your video card in xorg.conf. It is probably a good idea to use the same approximate amount as that detected by the server you intend to use. If you encounter problems that are due to the used server not supporting the amount memory you have, specify the maximum amount supported by the server. How much video memory do you have on your video card: 1 256K 2 512K 3 1024K 4 2048K 5 4096K 6 8192K 7 16384K 8 32768K 9 65536K 10 131072K 11 262144K 12 Other Enter your choice: If you know how much video RAM your card has, choose it from the list or enter it manually (in kilobytes) by choosing option 12. Otherwise, you can proceed by specifying an unrealistically high number, such as option 9 (64MB); this number doesn't directly affect the card's configuration, but tells xorgconfig what display resolutions and color depths it should offer you. You can always edit the X11 configuration file, after you're done with this script, to use video modes that don't tax your video card's capabilities or call your bluff. You must now enter a few identification/description strings, namely an identifier, a vendor name, and a model name. Just pressing enter will fill in default names (possibly from a card definition). The strings are free-form, spaces are allowed. Enter an identifier for your video card definition: blah You're now asked to enter a card identifier. Because you didn't select a card model, this identifier is important for future diagnostics; enter a label that describes your card as best you can. The next screen asks you what default color depth you want to use: Please specify which color depth you want to use by default: 1 1 bit (monochrome) 2 4 bits (16 colors) 3 8 bits (256 colors) 4 16 bits (65536 colors) 5 24 bits (16 million colors) Enter a number to choose the default depth. Select the number corresponding to the default color depth you want and press Enter. You will then be asked whether you want to save the changes: I am going to write the xorg.conf file now. Make sure you don't accidentally overwrite a previously configured one. Shall I write it to /etc/X11/xorg.conf? Select Y here to write the configuration file. This will overwrite any existing configuration file you may have. After you have written the changes, xorg.conf will respond with the following message and then exit: File has been written. Take a look at it before running 'startx'. Note that the xorg.conf file must be in one of the directories searched by the server (e.g. /etc/X11) in order to be used. Within the server press ctrl, alt and '+' simultaneously to cycle video resolutions. Pressing ctrl, alt and backspace simultaneously immediately exits the server (use if the monitor doesn't sync for a particular mode). For further configuration, refer to the xorg.conf(5) manual page. By default, X11 will start in 640x480 resolution. You will probably want to change this to a higher resolution. You will need to edit the xorg.conf configuration file manually in order to do so. The xorg.conf file is covered in the next section. |
