Chapter 6. The X Window System

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Basic X Concepts

• Using X11R6

• Starting X

• Selecting and Using Window Managers

• The GNOME and KDE Desktop Environments

• Reference

The X Window System, also known as X11R6, X11, and simply X, provides the graphical networking interface for your Fedora desktop. X started as a consortium-based project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the early 1980s, and over the years it has gone through several major revisions. X is managed in open-source form by an organization named X.org.

X uses a client/server model. Clients are simply X programs written to take advantage of the network communication and graphics drawing protocols available in supporting software libraries. The X server communicates with clients and manages many different aspects of a local or remote desktop session. The X server used with Fedora is X11R6 8.2, an open-source version of the X Window System provided by The X.Org Foundation.

Today there are X.Org distributions for many platforms besides Intel-based PCs. The open-source version of X from The X.Org Foundation included with Fedora is a merger of the previous releases of X11R6 and XFree86, the version of X Windows shipped with earlier versions of Fedora and Red Hat Linux.

This chapter shows you how to work with the version of X11 included with Fedora. After a brief overview of X and X.org, you will learn how to configure X to work with Linux on your computer, useful if you install a new video card or attach a new LCD panel. You will learn how to start X and select and use X window managers the X clients that draw and manage window displays, decorations, and onscreen icons. You will also get an introduction to Fedora's graphical desktop environment.

The Red Hat and Fedora Desktop

Red Hat initially caused quite a stir among veteran Linux users because of the decision to introduce consistency in the menus, dialogs, and client look and feel of GNOME and the K Desktop Environment (KDE), starting with Red Hat Linux 8.0. This action, part of the natural evolution of Red Hat's product line, provides a basic framework for the Red Hat desktop as a base Linux product in future commercial product lines. The new desktop is evolving, and enables Red Hat, Inc. to more easily integrate advanced products, such as enterprise-level web, database, application, or development server software.

Bluecurve, the new Red Hat desktop theme, was also used with Red Hat Linux 9 and now Fedora. While considered heresy by some die-hard users on both sides of the GNOME and KDE camps, the theme consistency actually helps novice Red Hat and Fedora users easily migrate from other operating systems by enabling them to learn a single set of controls and preferences while working in the new graphical interface.

The truth is that Fedora offers you the choice of whether to use the Red Hat desktop or another theme. You are entirely free to use a different desktop and to configure GNOME or KDE to look entirely different from the default graphical desktop. Fedora also includes alternative and legacy window managers, such as the Motif Window Manager mwm, and the twm window manager (which are discussed later in this chapter).