Additional Resources

Much more can be said about the XFree86 server, the clients that connect to it, and the assorted desktop environments and window managers. Advanced users interested in tweaking their XFree86 configuration will find these additional sources of information useful.

Installed Documentation

• /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/doc/README — Briefly describes the XFree86 architecture and how to get additional information about the XFree86 project as a new user.

• /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/doc/README.Config — Explains the advanced configuration options open to XFree86 version 3 users.

• /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/doc/RELNOTES — For advanced users who want to read about the latest features available in XFree86.

• man XF86Config — Contains information about the XFree86 configuration files, including the meaning of and syntax for the different sections within the files.

• man XFree86 — The primary man page for all XFree86 information. Details the difference between local and network X server connections, explores common environmental variables, lists command-line options, and provides helpful administrative key combinations.

• man Xserver — Describes the X display server.

Useful Websites

• http://www.xfree86.org — Home page of the XFree86 project, which produces the XFree86 open-source version of the X Window System. XFree86 is bundled with Red Hat Linux to control the necessary hardware and provide a GUI environment.

• http://dri.sourceforge.net — Home page of the DRI (Direct Rendering Infrastructure) project. The DRI is the core hardware 3D acceleration component of XFree86.

• http://www.redhat.com/mirrors/LDP/HOWTO/XFree86-HOWTO — A HOWTO document detailing the manual installation and custom configuration of XFree86.

• http://www.gnome.org — The home page of the GNOME project.

• http://www.kde.org — The home page of the KDE desktop environment.

Related Books

• The Concise Guide to XFree86 for Linux by Aron Hsiao (Que) — Provides an expert’s view of the operation of XFree86 on Linux systems.

• The New XFree86 by Bill Ball (Prima Publishing) — Discusses XFree86 and its relationship with popular desktop environments, such as GNOME and KDE.

• Beginning GTK+ and GNOME by Peter Wright (Wrox Press, Inc.) — Introduces programmers to the GNOME architecture, showing them how to get started with GTK+.

• GTK+/GNOME Application Development by Havoc Pennington (New Riders Publishing) — An advanced look into the heart of GTK+ programming, focusing on sample code and a thorough look at the available APIs.

• KDE 2.0 Development by David Sweet and Matthias Ettrich (Sams Publishing) — Instructs beginning and advanced developers how to take advantage of the many environment guidelines required to build Qt applications for KDE.