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| HowTo Linux Zone | Linux Zone Home | E-Mail Me | The X Window User HOWTO by Ray Brigleb, ray@aracnet.com
v2.0, 1 September 1999
This document contains information on configuring the X Window envi­
ronment for the Linux user, as well as for the beginning system admin­
istrator attempting to sort through the many configuration options and
details of X Window. A basic knowledge of software configuration and
installation is assumed, as is the presence of X on the users system.
______________________________________________________________________
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1 Other Sources Of Information
1.2 Versions Of This Document
1.3 Feedback And Corrections
1.4 Acknowledgments
1.5 Copyright
2. Getting Started
2.1 The X Window System: History and Architecture
2.2 Anatomy of Your Desktop
2.3 Invoking X Window
2.4 The X Display Manager
3. Choosing a Window Manager
3.1 FVWM And Its Ancestors
3.2 The Wide World of Window Systems
3.3 The X Graphical Interfaces
3.4 The X Desktop Environments
3.5 The Flashy Window Managers
4. Working In X
4.1 Command Line Options
4.2 Display Names
4.3 XTerm Versus Rxvt, or, Know Thy Terminal Emulator
5. X Startup
5.1 A Sample Starting Configuration
5.2 A More Intelligent Startup
5.3 Getting The Windows Where You Want Them
6. Configuring the Window Manager
6.1 Basic FVWM2 Configuration
6.2 Advanced FVWM2 Configuration
6.3 FVWM2 Configuration Shortcuts
6.4 FVWM2 Themes
7. Fonts and Colors
7.1 Fonts Demystified
7.2 Font Aliases and Configuration
7.3 Using Type 1 Fonts in X
7.4 Using TrueType Fonts in X
7.5 Colors
8. The X Resources
8.1 X Resources: The Basics
8.2 Inside The X Resource Database With
8.3 The Anatomy of X Resources
8.4 Making Your Changes Last With
8.5 Your Own User Resource Directory
9. Clients and Application Tips
9.1 Screen Savers for X
9.2 Emacs and XEmacs
9.3 Some Useful Programs and Tricks
10. Advanced X Usage
10.1 Libraries and Compiling X Applications
10.2 Basic X Security
10.3 More About X Authority
11. Bibliography and Other Resources
______________________________________________________________________
1. Introduction
The X Window System is an advanced, network transparent, windowing,
graphical environment, developed at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, and first released in 1984. This document assumes that you
have installed X and it is functional. We intend to learn how to use X
productively, not so much how to compile the programs; most Linux
distributions come with X as an option during installation, compiled
and ready to go.
1.1. Other Sources Of Information
If you are just starting out, you may find the XFree86 HOWTO and
XFree86 Video Timings HOWTOs to be more helpful, and you should be
able to find that in the same place you found this. At the end of the
document you will also find a Bibliography And Resources section, to
find even more information. Oh, and don't forget to read the man
pages.
1.2. Versions Of This Document
New versions of this HOWTO may be periodically posted to
comp.os.linux.help <news:comp.os.linux.help> They will also be
uploaded to various Linux WWW and FTP sites, including Linux
Documentation Project <http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP> web site. The
latest version can usually be found at
<http://www.croftj.net/~ray/howto>, but the Metalab repository is the
canonical distribution point.
Changes in version 1.1 include more coverage of rxvt, expanded
coverage of X Resources, more trivial history of X, corrected
references to SunSite to point to MetaLab, and instructions on using
Type 1 fonts with X.
Changes in version 1.2 include much-requested coverage of using
TrueType fonts in X, more details about setting up xdm, and a few more
added resources. There is also a correction to my discussion of screen
blanking features (thanks to Heinrich Langos for the correction!).
Changes in version 1.3 include some fixes, info for corrupted font
paths in some recent distributions, and lots more info about basic X
security. I've also added some tips about KDE and an e-mail address
update.
Changes in version 1.4 include corrections and additions from Anthony
J., and some very good security tips from Tomasz Motylewski.
Changes in this version (2.0) includes corrections from Guus Bosch,
Brian J. Miller, and myself, as well as lots of new updates and info,
and a plea for a new maintainer!
1.3. Feedback And Corrections
If you have questions or comments about this document, please feel
free to email Ray Brigleb at my current (ray@aracnet.com) or
``permanent'' (rayola@mindless.com) address. I readily welcome any
suggestions or criticisms. If you find any mistakes with this
document, please let me know so I can correct them in the next
revision. If you have information you would like to see in future
revisions, or you would like to contribute to a future revision, drop
me a line. I'm also looking for more resources to add to the sections
and bibliography. While we're at it, I'm also looking for someone
interested in taking over maintenance of this document, please let me
know if you're interested. I think another maintainer might be able
to breathe life into this project that I have not had as of late, and
judging from the feedback I receive this is still a very viable and
useful text.
1.4. Acknowledgments
A special thanks to the HOWTO coordinator Tim Bynum for help and
suggestions, and the XFree86 Group for the man pages and help files
that come with XFree86. I really need to thank all of those who have
written documentation and descriptions of their offerings in the past,
I have just gleaned a selection of the most relevant items from their
material for this document. Also, thanks are due to Matt Chapman,
author of the Window Managers Guide website, and Scott Scriven, for
the FVWM2 Themes tips and tricks I stole from some of his hacks.
Thanks are also due to Joe Croft for the Internet service, invaluable
to the ongoing development of this HOWTO, and Claire Galper, for moral
support and miscellaneous tips. Last but not least, thanks to the
whole GNU/Linux community, for everything, and Mr. Stallman, for this
text editor (and philosophy).
1.5. Copyright
Copyright (c) 1998, 1999 by Ray Brigleb.
Unless otherwise stated, Linux HOWTO documents are copyrighted by
their respective authors. Linux HOWTO documents may be reproduced and
distributed in whole or in part, in any medium physical or electronic,
as long as this copyright notice is retained on all copies. Commercial
redistribution is allowed and encouraged; however, the author would
like to be notified of any such distributions.
All translations, derivative works, or aggregate works incorporating
any Linux HOWTO documents must be covered under this copyright notice.
That is, you may not produce a derivative work from a HOWTO and impose
additional restrictions on its distribution. Exceptions to these rules
may be granted under certain conditions; please contact the Linux
HOWTO coordinator for more information.
In short, we wish to promote dissemination of this information through
as many channels as possible. However, we do wish to retain copyright
on the HOWTO documents, and would very much like to be notified of any
plans to redistribute the HOWTOs, this one in particular!
Many of the terms mentioned in this document are trade names. Unless
otherwise stated, all trademarks are property of their respective
owners.
2. Getting Started
2.1. The X Window System: History and Architecture
The X Window System was developed in the Laboratory for Computer
Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as part of
project Athena in cooperation with DEC, and first released in 1984.
The project lead of the main development was Robert Scheifler, and the
origins of X owe much debt to the ``W'' Windowing package, developed
by Paul Asente at Stanford. In September of 1987, MIT issued the first
release of the X11 that we know and use today. As of X11R2, control
passed from MIT to the X Consortium, formed in January of 1988.
Many of the ideas that went into X Window also came from research at
Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), where they were
working on computers like the Parc and the Star in the late seventies.
None of these computers made it to market, but when Xerox demonstrated
a window system custom built to run Smalltalk 80, people were hooked.
These series of three computers demonstrated the WIMP (Windows, Icons,
Menus, Pointer) interface so well that it spawned a revolution in
computing almost overnight. Within a few years many computer users got
a taste of a windowing system of some kind, and you might say they
never looked back.
X Window is currently developed and distributed by the X Consortium,
however, a liberal license permits the existence of free and low-cost
implementations. The version of X used on Linux is XFree86. XFree86
is a collection of X servers for UNIX-like OSs on Intel x86 platforms.
The work is derived from X386, and much of it is contributed back into
X11R6 thereafter. We can think of XFree86, for all intents and
purposes, to be X Window for Linux, unless you have purchased another
X server.
X Window is built upon a great many toolkits, or libraries. It is
built upon the X Toolkit Intrinsics and the Athena Widgets. Many
programs use XView or Motif tools. More still are part of a newer,
unified windowing and communication system, like GNOME or KDE. If you
find many of your programs not compiling, or are getting strange and
inexplicable errors, you may wish to make sure that you have installed
X correctly, because most of these libraries (with the exception of
Motif) are free and most likely preinstalled with X on your system.
And remember, it's called X Window, not X Windows!
2.2. Anatomy of Your Desktop
There are a few basic principles and terms you should familiarize
yourself with to make using X much more straightforward. These terms
will appear over and over again in the manual pages and help files,
which it is suggested that you consult whenever necessary.
The screen is your whole ``desktop'', and the words may be used
interchangeably. Technically it means the primary video display you
view X with, and you can have more than one screen, in fact you can
have more than one computer running off a single X server. This is
beyond the scope of this humble document, but you should be aware of
the distinction.
The root window is the background of your screen. It is referred to a
window in name alone, it does not behave like any other window, but
rather you run your applications on the root window, or put a picture
on it, or just a solid color.
The window manager is the main interface between the X Window system
and the user. Without the window manager, the system would be rather
difficult to use, and would certainly not be a very productive tool.
The window manager provides such functionality as window borders,
menus, icons, virtual desktops, button bars, tool bars, and allows the
user to customize it at will, often adding to its functionality in the
process.
The pointer is the arrow or indicator of any given shape which
represents the location your mouse (or other pointing device)
corresponds to on the screen. The pointer often changes to give you
contextual feedback as to what will happen when you use the mouse at
that point on the screen.
The window is a frame in which any given application resides which is
``managed'' by the window manager. This includes pretty much anything
except the so-called root window. Even windows which do not appear to
have frames, titles, or normal borders of any kind are being managed
by your window manger. The active window is the window you are
currently using, the window that will receive text when you type, and
is traditionally denoted by the fact that your mouse cursor is
pointing at it, though this is not always the case. The active window
is said to have ``focus,'' the rest of the windows on your display
being ``unfocused.''
Menus and icons behave in X similar to the way they behave in other
windowing systems, and the same general principles apply. Windows with
text only are called terminal emulators, an example would be xterm,
and these basically emulate a console text-only display, but let you
multiplex and use more than one at a time, and have many other
advantages available due to their being used in X. We shall discuss
many of these later on.
2.3. Invoking X Window
Starting X can be done in several ways. On your system it may be set
up to start automatically, and you will not need to read this section.
Most Linux systems, however, presently start at the command line upon
login, and you have to decipher this for yourself.
The most basic way to start X is with xinit. This will put you at a
blank desktop, by default, and with no window manager loaded. If no
client program is specified on the command line, xinit will look for
the .xinitrc file to run as a shell script, to start up client
programs. If this file does not exist, xinit will use the following
command as a default:
xterm -geometry +1+1 -n login -display :0
As you see, this is not very helpful. The most common way to start X
is with the command startx. This is the most civilized fashion to
start the windowing system, but requires that you log in from a text
shell, and start the windowing system yourself. For many Linux users
this is the most common way to start X, it is also the most flexible.
You can issue commands such as the following:
startx -- -bpp 8 #start x in 256 color mode
startx -- -bpp 32 #start x in true color mode
The double dashes pass arguments directly to xinit, and this way you
can start up X in the resolution your work will require, and still
have it use the configuration files we will cover later in this
document.
2.4. The X Display Manager
The program xdm provides similar services to getty and login, which
allow users to log into a system and start their basic shell. If you
start X with xdm, however, users need only to type in their username
and password at a friendly prompt, and they are dropped directly into
the graphical environment. This is simple and easy to use, and is
seen frequently in college campuses, cyber cafes, business
environments, anywhere you have users not necessarily familiar with
Unix to any great extent.
xdm can be configured with configuration files located in
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xdm on your Linux system. The file xdm-config is
for configuring how the login screen appears to users, and Xsetup_0
is used to tell xdm what programs should be launched when X is
started. Some of the configuration a normal user would put in their
.xinitrc file should go in here, if xdm is to be normally used.
Here is a sample Xsetup_0 file to look at, which might help to
configure your system. The xfstt program is the TrueType font server,
and is discussed later in this document. Also, notice that we're
using a shell script here, and it's trying to call xv to set the
background to a nice picture (instead of the boring black and white
background pattern), and if that call fails, xsetroot is called, to at
least try to set the background to a nice blue color.
#!/bin/sh
xconsole -geometry 480x100-0-0 -daemon -notify -verbose -fn \
'-schumacher-clean-medium-r-*-*-10-*-*-*-*-*-*-*' -exitOnFail
/usr/X11R6/bin/xfstt &
/usr/X11R6/bin/xv -quit -root \
/usr/local/share/WindowMaker/Backgrounds/InDreams.jpg \
|| xsetroot -solid darkblue
xset fp+ unix/:7100
Many distributions of Linux include this facility automatically. If
you are able to look at the run levels for your Linux system, you can
probably see that run level 3 is the normal startup (look under
/etc/rc.d) unless you're booting into something like xdm. If you are,
you're going to be starting in run level 5. This is something of a
standard on Linux (and similar) systems. Programs such as linuxconf
and its functional equivalents should be able to adjust this.
Also on many newer Linux systems are facilities such as gdm and kdm,
which are GNOME and KDE aware equivalents of this program. Primarily,
this just changes the look and feel to suit your desktop preferance,
but often these other versions contain more features, such as
remembering which desktop environment you last logged in to, the
ability to shutdown and reboot from the console, and so forth.
3. Choosing a Window Manager
This is a discussion of the window managers available to the X Window
user, with a comparison of some finer ones to choose from. In order to
prevent this document from becoming overwhelmingly large (and
proportionally difficult to maintain, as well) I am limiting the
discussion to the more popular and well known window managers out
there. I believe these are most representative for our purposes, and
once you grasp the basic concepts of a few, you more or less will have
the hang of them all.
Your choice of window manager can dramatically influence how pleasant
your computing experience will be. You spend much of your time dealing
with windows when you're in X, and you don't want something that's too
obtrusive, one that will get in your way. Some window managers are
extremely customizable, to the point that you can pretty much feel
like it's a new operating system. If you don't like icons, get rid of
them! If you miss that toolbar, you can build a better one, and it can
be a pretty painless and rewarding process besides.
3.1. FVWM And Its Ancestors
The most common window managers nowadays have their roots in Robert
Nation's FVWM window manager. These include FVWM, FVWM2, FVWM95, and
many more. FVWM itself is derived partly from TWM, which comes with an
X Window installation, but which we will not cover here. The syntax
and usage of TWM is similar to FVWM, but it actually uses more memory,
and feels clumsy and awkward to most users.
FVWM is the original and old standby favorite Linux window manager.
Now that the 2.0 of versions of FVWM have become stable and in more
general usage, this newer version is preferred, for the syntax is much
more direct and simplified, and much more flexible as well. However,
many people still have the original FVWM on their systems, as it has
been a long time favorite and standard, and most of the examples in
this text are equally applicable to this older version. And if the
older one is working fine for you, there may be no need to upgrade,
since it may break your configuration files to some degree, for some
of the syntax has indeed changed, and is not altogether backward
compatible. Such is the nature of progress.
Nobody seems quite sure what F in FVWM stands for (not even the
author, from what I can tell!), but the VWM would seem to (correctly)
indicate Virtual Window Manager, and indeed the FVWM series are
virtual window managers, and that is one of their strengths. You can
bind keys to any function, including the switching between the virtual
desktops, and do this with ease.
FVWM2 is the new standard, including many improvements and features
not found in the previous version. Unlike many newer window managers,
it works just fine on 8-bit, 256 color displays, which I am using at
the moment, and still can be improved with little icons and gradients,
to look as much like the Win98 interface as you may or may not want.
This version is also much more extensible in general, and allows the
use of themes and dynamic menus. Technically, FVWM2 is still in beta,
but it works just great, and I have not yet had a single problem with
it.
Resources:
The official FVWM and FVWM2 site is
<http://www.hpc.uh.edu/fvwm/>. The latest version should always
be available at <ftp://ftp.hpc.uh.edu/pub/fvwm/>.
3.2. The Wide World of Window Systems
For users more familiar with other window environments on other
operating systems, there are plenty of window managers to emulate the
desktop you're accustomed to.
The icewm <http://berta.fri.uni-lj.si/~markom/icewm> window manager is
aimed at a more consistent look and feel, and can emulate many other
windowing system standards, hot key bindings, and such. The OS/2
emulations are particularly nice. AmiWM
<http://www.lysator.liu.se/~marcus/amiwm.html> is an Amiga Workbench
type window manager, mlvwm <http://www.bioele.nuee.nagoya-
u.ac.jp/member/tak/mlvwm.html> is a MacOS emulator. A nice addition to
these window managers is dfm <http://www-c.informatik.uni-
hannover.de/~kaiser/dfm/dfm.html>, a desktop and file manager that
pleasantly resembles the OS/2 Workplace Shell.
Resources:
The Window Managers website can be found at
<http://www.PLiG.org/xwinman/>, and is a consistently good
resource for finding out about the variety of window managers
available, particularly for finding good window managers to
emulate other windowing environments. Many more still are listed
at <http://www.PLiG.org/xwinman/others.html>, provided by the
same author as the previous link, and this is quite a formidable
and complete list indeed. You can download Linux versions of
most popular window managers at the metalab
<ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/X11/window-managers> archive.
3.3. The X Graphical Interfaces
Open Look and Motif were early attempts to standardize X Window, and
make it usable in more mainstream environments, around a greater
variety of workstations. Both were somewhat successful at those
attempts (in look and feel, if not politically) and can be used under
a modern Linux system. Both require specific libraries, which can be
used to compile a variety of applications specifically designed for
one or the other environment, to give all programs a similar look and
feel.
Starting with X11 Release 5, Sun Microsystem's OpenWindows graphical
interface was available to X users. This includes two versions of the
Open Look Window Manager, olwm and olvwm (with a virtual desktop).
This was developed by Sun in hopes of making a standard windowing
environment, and indeed it was standard with Solaris for many years.
If your distribution of Linux did not come with this windowing system
installed, you must remember to install the XView libraries to get it
to work, and you will also have to put the /usr/openwin/...
directories in your search path.
If you want the actual OSF/Motif Toolkit for Linux, you'll have to
pay, the programs and toolkit are not free. However, the Hungry
Programmers have written LessTif, which allows you to compile Motif
programs more or less as if you owned to toolkit. LessTif is a clone
of the Motif toolkit. Currently LessTif is partially implemented with
most of the API in place. Many programs already work under this free
version of the toolkit, and it even comes with a window manager,
derived from FVWM code, which you'd swear was the Motif Window
Manager.
The most useful feature of this toolkit, however, is compiling
programs dependent on having a Motif library on your system. The
window manager is nothing spectacular, and mostly useful if you're
migrating from the original Motif, and want to keep your configuration
file. For all intents and purposes, you will find FVWM much more
feature-filled and useful, and it looks and behaves almost
identically, even recognizing the window hints supplied by programs
built with the Motif toolkit.
Resources:
The Hungry Programmers LessTif can be found at
<http://www.lesstif.org/>.
3.4. The X Desktop Environments
The second generation of Linux window managers was brought about by
KDE, and soon joined by GNOME. There are some striking similarities,
and some great differences, between these two, and I will attempt to
cover them here. The most important thing to remember at this point is
that neither of them is in any way a complete product. Both are at the
start of a long development cycle, and not completely stable yet, and
as such are not suited to mission-critical work at this time.
The KDE Desktop Environment
(A quote from the home page:) ``KDE is a completely new desktop,
incorporating a large suite of applications for Unix workstations.
While KDE includes a window manager, file manager, panel, control
center and many other components that one would expect to be part of a
contemporary desktop environment, the true strength of this
exceptional environment lies in the interoperability of its
components.''
The KDE Desktop Environment is an attempt to make a desktop
environment, not just a window manager. The tools of KDE work together
so well, for instance, one might be fooled into thinking KDE was an
entire operating system. All the tools to work in a windowing system
are included, and many more have been ported to the KDE environment.
KDE has achieved a surprising level of maturity already, but many are
reluctant to install it on their desktop, because of the licensing
stipulations of the QT toolkit, upon which KDE is based. This has
changed a little lately, and the licence now qualifies as Open Source
by definition, but is not the same as that of GNU software.
For those just looking to get down to business, KDE is often the way
to go. This project has been around for some time now, and has let go
of some flashiness for the ability to get lots done. In many ways you
can become fooled into thinking you're using a product strikingly
similar to the good parts of Windows. Which can be a good thing. But
it can also be somewhat frustrating, and one longs after a while for
something a little different from the paradigm upon which KDE is
firmly based.
GNOME: The GNU Object Model Environment
(A quote from the home page:) ``GNOME stands for GNU Network Object
Model Environment. The GNOME project intends to build a complete,
user-friendly desktop based entirely on free software. GNOME is part
of the GNU project, and GNOME is part of the OpenSource(tm) movement.
The desktop will consist of small utilities and larger applications
which share a consistent look and feel. GNOME uses GTK+ as the GUI
toolkit for all GNOME-compliant applications.''
The GNOME project is an attempt to do much of the same work as KDE,
but even a little more than that. GNOME is less tied to one window
manager, for instance, and it is interoperable not just between
applications, but computers and platforms, as it uses the Common
Object Resource Broker Architecture (CORBA). Also, and to many most
importantly, GNOME is based on the GTk+ toolkit, which is free and
open source, unlike the underlying toolkit of KDE, thereby following
in the philosophy of Linux itself.
Resources:
The official KDE website is <http://www.kde.org/>. The official
GNOME website is <http://www.gnome.org/>. More detailed
information regarding the issues surrounding GNOME can be found
at <http://www.gnome.org/gnomefaq/FAQ.txt>. The home page of
CORBA is located at <http://www.corba.org/> , and the GTk+
toolkit home is <http://www.gtk.org/> .
3.5. The Flashy Window Managers
The latest generation of window manger is very very pretty indeed.
Sporting every convenience you could think of, and emulating the most
beautiful operating systems ever used on the most gorgeous
workstations in the world, these are the window managers to run if
you've got the memory and CPU cycles to burn.
Window Maker
(A quote from the home page:) ``Window Maker is an X11 window manager
designed to give additional integration support for GNUstep
applications. It tries to emulate the elegant look and feel of the
NEXTSTEP(tm) GUI. It is relatively fast, feature rich, and easy to
configure and use.''
A big strength of this window manager is that it supports the GNU
desktop, meaning that it makes a great and very pretty front-end to
GNOME. This is also one of the most easily configurable window
managers, and can be configured from a graphical interface, and
supports the OffiX drag and drop protocol, easy switching of desktop
themes, and it's now available within the popular Red Hat
distribution, so it's easy and painless to switch from FVWM when the
mood finally strikes. As of the 0.50 release, Window Maker supports
KDE compliance as well.
AfterStep
(A quote from the home page:) ``AfterStep is a Window Manager for X
which started by emulating the NEXTSTEP look and feel, but which has
been significantly altered according to the requests of various users.
Many adepts will tell you that NEXTSTEP is not only the most visually
pleasant interface, but also one of the most functional and intuitive
out there. AfterStep aims to incorporate the advantages of the
NEXTSTEP interface, and add additional useful features. The
developers of AfterStep have also worked very hard to ensure stability
and a small program footprint.''
Enlightenment
Enlightenment is more than just a window manager, it is an extreme,
detailed, and configurable environment, and is particularly attractive
in that it allows irregular and completely customizable window shapes.
It is open in design, and instead of dictating a policy it allows the
user to define their own policy right down to the minute and
infinitesimal details; from its functionality right on through to its
looks.
If you are using GNOME, you will find that Enlightenment is the
default window manager, and in fact, it must be installed for GNOME to
function. It is also basically the de facto implementation of the
GNOME features for integration, making it the most practical choice
for a desktop in that situation. Many other window managers will work
alright with GNOME, but you will find that Enlightement excels.
Unfortunately, it is still in development, and runs slowly and
imperfectly from time to time.
Resources:
The official Window Maker website is
<http://www.windowmaker.org/>. The official AfterStep website is
<http://www.afterstep.org/>. Enlightenment can be found,
somewhat predictably, at <http://www.enlightenment.org/>.
4. Working In X
In this section we will become familiar with running clients in X
Window and the basic procedures involved in using the system. X is not
an intuitive interface on its own, and without any window manager, it
is easiest to use as a display for programs started from the command
line. One of the most common uses for X is just to have several xterm
windows open at the same time. Not exactly maxing out the graphics
capabilities of the computer, but it's a nice feature to start with.
The flexibility and usefulness of the command line is so great, in
fact, that you don't really need a window manager. It's nice, and you
will want it very quickly, but the fact is that you can get by without
one, just the command line and the mouse. If you give it a shot,
you'll be surprised as to the exact distinctions between the clients
and the window manager. If you start toying around with this, however,
remember that the key combination Ctrl-Alt-Backspace gets you out of X
Window in a pinch.
4.1. Command Line Options
Most X programs try to use the same basic names for command line
options. All applications written using the MIT X Toolkit Intrinsics
automatically accept the following options:
-display display
This option specifies the X server to use. See the section on
Display Names for details.
-geometry geometry
The initial size and location of the window, in a format such as
widthxheight+hoffset+voffset or +hoffset-voffset. Note that if
you put in a negative horizontal or vertical offset, the window
will be placed counting backward from the right or the bottom of
the screen, respectively.
-font font
The font to use for displaying the text in your window.
-bg color
The color to use for the window background.
-fg color
The color to use for the window foreground.
-name resource-name
Useful for specifying the name under which the resources for
this application will be found. This is useful to distinguish
between invocations of the same application, for example, two
xterms can be named differently so that they may inherit
different resources based upon those names in the resource
database.
-title string
This is the title to be used for the window on your display,
generally used by the window manager to put a descriptive title
at the top of the window. Not to be confused with the -name
option.
-iconic
Invoke window as an icon.
-xrm resource-string
This option specifies a resource name and value to override any
defaults that may already be set. Also useful for setting X
resources that do not have explicit command line options. For
instance, the command line xterm -xrm "xterm*background: blue"
is functionally identical to typing xterm -bg blue.
4.2. Display Names
Every X Server has a display name of the form:
hostname:displaynumber.screennumber
The hostname specifies the name of the machine to which the display is
actually, physically connected. The hostname can be omitted, and if
so, the server on the same machine will be chosen. In fact, if you are
the only one using X on your computer, you will want to just leave
this off of your display specifications. The displaynumber should
probably be zero, this is used if the X Server is controlling more
than one keyboard and monitor unit, for instance, a network of X
terminals. The screennumber specifies which monitor in a multiple
monitor setup should be used. Following this specification, you would
open an xterm window on your local machine with the option -display
:0.0. You can see that we have omitted the hostname from the option,
so the current machine is assumed.
On Linux systems, your DISPLAY variable holds your display name, which
on my system is :0.0. This is usually set by xterm, or one of the
scripts that starts X Window for you, although you can set it
yourself, or as discussed above, use the -display command line option
when invoking your application.
If you have opened an xterm or rxvt window, and then opted to do
super-user work via the su command, you will find that if you try to
launch an X application you will have no display to launch it on.
Silly it seems, because you are sitting right in front of your
display, but the trick to getting this to work is to pass an option on
the command line to the program such as -display :0.0, and it will
work fine.
4.3. XTerm Versus Rxvt, or, Know Thy Terminal Emulator
Your choice of terminal emulator can affect your experience in X
almost as much as your window manager, so a little discussion of your
best options is due here. A terminal emulator is a program such as
xterm, discussed above, which lets you emulate the simple console of
Linux in X. You will rely heavily on the program you choose, so it
pays to choose it wisely to begin with.
If you have a slow video card, the first thing you should consider
doing is switching to rxvt. Using xterm is a good starting point,
mainly because it comes standard with all X distributions, but it's
not always the best choice. It contains a lot of legacy code, and is
quite bloated for a simple terminal emulator. This is partly due to
the fact that it's not just a plain text terminal emulator, but also
emulates graphics modes that you simply will never use. Because of
this, you may wish to switch to rxvt, and also because xterm can be
extremely slow. I'm not sure why it's so slow, but if you have a slow
video card you'll know what I mean, and you'll be amazed at the
difference when you dump xterm.
Some other perks of rxvt include pixmap backgrounds, and a much nicer
scrollbar. If you specify the -pixmap option on the command line (and
have support compiled in to your version!) you will get any .xpm-type
picture in the background. A very cool feature, and it surprisingly
doesn't slow down your output at all, it still redraws faster than
your xterm window. Give it a shot, I haven't seen it around lately but
I think it can be found on metalab.
5. X Startup
We will presume for the following examples that we have picked a
fairly stable window manager, such as FVWM2, to try out some sample
configurations. I would suggest giving that a shot for the purpose of
learning these topics, as most of what you will learn here and in the
following sections will apply to any window manager out there, but the
topics seem most easily picked up using FVWM2.
5.1. A Sample Starting Configuration
Our first step is to write ourselves an initialization file for X
itself. This file can be either a system-wide file, in which case it
would likely be placed in /var/X11R6/lib/xinit/xinitrc, or it can be
overridden on a per-user basis by placing the file .xinitrc in your
home directory. Generally, it is expected that there will be a basic,
default file in the system-wide location, possibly enforced if
necessary for security reasons, but otherwise users will probably wish
to configure the file themselves.
First let's create a file in your home directory called .xinitrc. Open
up your ``favorite'' text editor, and paste the following, or
something like it, in that file:
#!/bin/sh
# if your backspace and delete are reversed, try this:
xmodmap -e "keysym BackSpace=Delete" -e "keysym
Delete-BackSpace"
xsetroot -solid darkslateblue
# start some basic applications
xclock -geometry 96x96+2+2 -bg grey40 -fg black -hl white &
xload -geometry 120x96+2+147 -bg grey40 -fg white -hl darkred -update 4
&
xterm -sb -ls -geom 80x25-2+2 -title "shell" &
xterm -sb -ls -geom 80x25-2-2 &
# start the window manager
/usr/X11R6/bin/fvwm2
There are plenty of things to learn from this example. First of all,
this file will be a shell script, as indicated by the first line. The
xsetroot command on the second line turns the background of our
desktop to a pleasant blue color, not a bad idea if we're going to be
staring at that color predominantly all day.
The third and fourth lines are some programs that I like to leave
running while I'm fast at work. You'll notice that some of the options
make for a nicer setup, for example, specifying the colors and
geometry (location on screen). I'll give you some tips for figuring
this stuff out in a bit. The fifth and sixth lines follow similarly,
opening up two handy xterm windows for us, which we will no doubt be
needing soon.
The last line is very important--it is this line that starts up your
window manager! Notice that the only commands we did not run as
background processes (by putting the & at the end) were xsetroot,
xmodmap, fvwm2. With these first two it doesn't matter, as the
programs exit immediately. But all the rest of the programs have to be
in the background, otherwise when you closed one, it would kill your X
Window session. That would not be very pleasant, nor very expected. As
shown above, when you close fvwm2, you exit X.
5.2. A More Intelligent Startup
We can add lots to our primitive example of a startup file. For
instance, this is a good way to warn yourself when you may have
carelessly stared X as the root user. Red Hat users seem to do this
often, for many of the configuration programs which must be run as
root, must also be run in X. You can avoid this by issuing an su
command to become root during your normal X user session, and then
calling the program you need to run as root with the option -display
:0.0 discussed above.
# change background color for root
if [ "$USER" = "root" ];
then
xsetroot -solid darkred
else xsetroot -solid darkslateblue
fi
This will check to see if you are the user named root, and if you are,
it will set the background to a harsh red, rather than the usual
friendly blue, to warn you. This next bit of code, also intended for
your .xinitrc file, will merge in your user-specific and system-wide
resources, first checking to be sure the files exist.
userresources=$HOME/.Xresources
usermodmap=$HOME/.Xmodmap
sysresources=/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit/.Xresources
sysmodmap=/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit/.Xmodmap
# Merge in defaults and keymaps
if [ -f $sysresources ]; then
xrdb -merge $sysresources; fi
if [ -f $sysmodmap ]; then
xmodmap $sysmodmap; fi
if [ -f $userresources ]; then
xrdb -merge $userresources; fi
if [ -f $usermodmap ]; then
xmodmap $usermodmap; fi
5.3. Getting The Windows Where You Want Them
Placing everything on your screen by guesswork with the -geometry
option can get very tedious indeed. Particularly when you consider
that you can specify the -geometry option to pretty much any program
you can run in X. This allows a great precision in tuning the
interface, but that's a heck of a lot of options to set, indeed.
This brings up one very nice feature of the FVWM window managers. By
default, when you move a window around the screen, you see the
geometry specification appear on the screen. Go ahead, try moving a
window around with the left button. Now try resizing it. As you can
see, you can get some primitive specifications this way. However, even
this method can be a little difficult, and it would be nice to have
all the details about your window in one concise list.
It is at this point that we will introduce the program xwininfo. To
use this program, go to an xterm window and type in that program name.
It will ask you to click on another window that you want information
about, and after you click it will dump out useful information that it
knows about that window. This is useful for plugging information
about windows once you have them set up how you want them on your
screen - run this program, then click on the window, then put in those
parameters in your startup file, and your window system will
henceforth be frozen in a pristine state of immaculate precision.
6. Configuring the Window Manager
Now we take a look at the files to configure your window manager.
These vary from manager to manager, but for our examples we will focus
on the per-user files, and we are looking at FVWM2 in this example, so
you will modify the file .fvwm2rc in your home directory.
6.1. Basic FVWM2 Configuration
Configuring your window manager resource file in earlier versions of
FVWM was a rather arduous process, because the order of the items in
the file needed to be very particular, but that has relaxed quite a
bit in this version. To my knowledge, the only crucial part of the
ordering is the bindings for the menus, but we'll cover that a bit
later. Your FVWM2 installation should have come with an example
resource file, and you should be able to find that in
/var/X11R6/lib/fvwm2/system.fvwm2rc. This is the default system-wide
configuration file. A good idea would be to copy that file into your
home directory and call it .fvwm2rc. From that point on, when FVWM2
starts up it will read the file in your home directory, and ignore the
system-wide configuration file.
Now that you've got a working, personalized copy of the window manager
resource file in your home directory, open it in your favorite text
editor, and take a look at it. If you're in X at the moment, you can
see the correlation between the file and what you see on your desktop.
Very helpful indeed. Let's try changing something and see if we can
make it look a little better. Probably the first entry in your file
(that is not followed by the # comment character) is the WindowFont
entry, followed by a very bizarre font name. If you want to figure out
how to set up the fonts and colors to their fullest, skip ahead to the
next section on X Fonts and Colors.
6.2. Advanced FVWM2 Configuration
Configuring FVWM2 can get incredibly subtle and complex. Take this
code snippet from the fvwm2gnome setup for the .fvwm2rc file:
# import config files
Echo -Styles-
Read .fvwm2gnome/config/styles/app.styles
Read .fvwm2gnome/config/styles/window.styles
Echo -Buttons & Keys-
Read .fvwm2gnome/config/buttons.config
This is an example of a way to read in other configurations. In this
fashion you can modularize your .fvwm2rc -- not a bad idea,
considering how jumbled one huge configuration file can become. This
can make it easier to change and to debug, and it also makes it easier
to configure so-called themes, which we will cover in a moment.
6.3. FVWM2 Configuration Shortcuts
A really neat way to configure your script for FVWM2 (and FVWM, and
bash, and a whole lot of other programs besides!) is to use the
Dotfile Generator, by Jesper K. Pedersen, available from
<http://www.imada.ou.dk/~blackie/dotfile/>. You will need to have a
recent version of Tcl/Tk installed (available with most Linux
distributions). This program starts with a configuration preset, or
takes the one you presently have, and allows you to tweak it via many
structured menus of options.
Be warned, however, for I advise learning how to set up your
configuration file yourself! Not only is this the Unix Way (for what
that's worth) but it's much easier to make small and incremental
changes to your .fvwm2rc file that way, and get things exactly how you
like them. Also, being a Tcl/Tk program, it's a little slow.
Nevertheless, if you want a painless way to start with a decent
configuration, this is definitely worth a shot.
6.4. FVWM2 Themes
Among the many new possibilities of FVWM2 are something commonly
called themes. This basically means that you can switch between a
basic look for all of your windows on your desktop, on the fly. Note
that if you've made the distinction between the functions of the
window manager and the functions of the applications themselves, you
will realize that a window manager theme is not going to affect the
look and feel of the applications themselves. Integrated toolkits such
as KDE and GNOME do have this capability, however, and the two might
be used together very effectively.
In order to generate a theme, you must roll up your sleeves and modify
your .fvwm2rc file a little bit. Here's something I added near the
beginning of my file, try putting it right after your Style
definitions:
# Blue Theme
DestroyDecor Blue
AddToDecor Blue
+ WindowFont -b&h-lucida-bold-r-*-*-*-140-*-*-*-*-*-*
+ TitleStyle ActiveDown (Solid DarkSteelBlue)\
ActiveUp (Solid SteelBlue) Inactive (Solid Grey)
+ HilightColor white blue
+ ButtonStyle 1 -- UseBorderStyle
Style Blue UseDecor Blue, BorderWidth 5, HandleWidth 5,\
MWMborder, MWMbuttons
# Function to change all windows to a new style.
DestroyFunc ChangeStyle
AddToFunc ChangeStyle
+ "I" Style $0 $1
+ "I" Recapture
That's a lot to swallow, I know. Basically we're first defining a
theme called ``Blue,'' and you can use that first half as a model to
design other themes. Themes can describe many more features than that,
in fact, and can be quite remarkably different from one another. Then
we're defining a function to change all the windows to a new style.
Notice in both sections above that we destroy the object before
creating it. This is a good idea since you may well be restarting
FVWM2 a lot to try out your different styles, and this makes it work a
bit more smoothly.
The function call is needed as a generic interface to call the
definitions of the styles we have defined. Now we will make the menu
items to call them.
DestroyMenu "Themes"
AddToMenu "Themes"
+ "Choose a theme..." Title
+ "" Nop
+ "Blue" ChangeStyle "*" "UseStyle Blue"
+ "Mwm" ChangeStyle "*" "UseStyle Mwm"
+ "Flat" ChangeStyle "*" "UseStyle Flat"
We're being a little terse with the menu definition here, but there
should be a lot more in the sample file on your system. What we're
doing is calling the ChangeStyle function that we defined above to
change the style for all the windows on the screen to one of the
presets we defined above that. Notice, again, our good practice in
destroying the menu before creating it. Now if you restart FVWM2 (you
should also have a menu option for that, hopefully!) you will see a
new Themes menu selection, and you should be able to try out the
different themes.
For more examples of FVWM2 Themes, visit
<http://www.vis.colostate.edu/~scriven/Linux/fvwm/index.html>.
7. Fonts and Colors
There are a lot of tricks to the fonts and colors used in X. They are
not quite as simple as in some other systems, for instance, the font
is not just a one-word name. You specify these resources quite
explicitly, and it seems rather complex at first, but with a little
explanation you'll be a whiz in no time.
7.1. Fonts Demystified
The X Logical Font Description (``XLFD'') is the full name for a font.
It consists of the following fields:
· fndry - font foundry, the company or individual which made the font
· fmly - font family, the popular nickname of the font
· wght - font weight (bold, medium, etc.)
· slant - font slant (italics, oblique, roman (normal), etc.)
· sWdth - font width (normal, condensed, extended, etc.)
· adstyl - additional style (sans serif, serif, etc.)
· pxlsz - pixel size, the number of pixels vertically in a character
· ptSz - approximate point size of the text (similar to pxlsz)
· resx - horizontal resolution, in dpi
· resy - vertical resolution, in dpi
· spc - spacing, only useful, apparently, in the Schumacher fonts
· avgWidth - average character width of the font
· rgstry - the recognized registry that lists the font
· encdng - nationality encoding
In light of this chaos, the program xfontsel (the default X Window
font selection program) will come in enormously useful to you. Try
launching it right now. You will see a strange nothing helpful in the
main window, but try holding the left button down on the fndry button.
If all your fonts are in order, you will see a menu of selections such
as adobe and b&h and bitstream and so forth. Select one such as b&h
and you will notice that the font in the lower window changes to
something intelligible. This is generally the way you will select
fonts with this program, starting from the left, which is the most
general selection, and moving toward the right, to the more specific
options. Selecting an option toward the rightmost end will not make
much sense before the foundry, for instance, is selected, because the
options are generally ordered by their dependence on each other.
When you go to select from the fmly selection, you will see most of
the options greyed out, and only three remaining. That means that
these three are the only families of font made by this foundry. Some
families appear under more than one foundry, for instance, both Adobe
and Bitstream make a variation of the Courier font. Now you can select
the wght, and so forth. After you get far enough you will have
narrowed it down to the font that you want. You don't necessarily
have to fill in all the options to choose a single font, there's not
that many fonts on your system! The options that you do not select
will be represented by a * indicating that any option will do in that
spot.
When you are happy with your font selection, you can hit the select
button, and your selection will be placed in the X clipboard, ready to
be pasted into your document or whatever you are working on. For
instance, go to your xterm window and type in something like xterm
-font followed by an opening quotation mark. Then point to that spot
on your screen, and click your middle mouse button (or click both the
left and right, if you're middle-button impaired). This will paste
the selection from the clipboard, which should be the font you just
selected. Then enter the closing quote, and hit Enter. For instance, a
nice big xterm with a Courier font specified would look like this:
xterm -font "-adobe-courier-medium-r-*-*-14-*-*-*-*-*-*-*" A fresh
xterm should the pop up using the font that you selected.
The utility xfd is very helpful for examining a font. If you launch
it with a command line such as xfd -fn fixed, it will show you the
character set for the font, much like the keycaps utility on a
Macintosh. Note that you can also limit the number of fonts that you
want xfontsel to display with the command line option -pattern,
followed by a quoted font specification, as discussed above.
7.2. Font Aliases and Configuration
Sometimes it gets tiresome to remember all of the long font names, and
very impractical too. Luckily, it is not necessary to type in a
hundred keystrokes or so just to get the font name you want, for X
provides something called font aliases.
If you look in the directory /usr/X11R6/lib/fonts/misc/fonts.alias,
you will find shortcut names for many of the fonts. For example, 8x16
is listed as a shortcut for -sony-fixed-medium-r-
normal--16-120-100-100-c-80-iso8859-1, and anywhere you enter 8x16 as
an X font resource or at a command line for a font name, the long
version of the font will be substituted. The 75dpi and 100dpi
directories have similar aliases to take advantage of, on most systems
the Lucida Sans font has a nice shortcut.
If you add fonts or aliases to your system, you will have to issue a
few commands (probably as root). If you add fonts, you will have to
issue the following two commands (these are examples, you will have to
put in the correct directory, or perhaps leave it off altogether, to
have your fonts re-read correctly.
mkfontdir /usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc
xset fp rehash
If you change the alias file for a font, you may only have to issue
the last command above, but it may be a good idea to issue them both,
to be sure. With the xset command you can explicitly issue a font
path you wish the server to use, you can delete a specific directory
from your font path, see the man page for more information.
Another common problem is that some distributions (notably Red Hat
5.2, at the moment) come with the fonts configured in the wrong order.
If you take a look at your /etc/XF86Config (it may be somewhere else
in some distributions, unfortunately, and I'm not sure where it is in
Red Hat at the moment, so maybe locate it...) Take a look at this
file if your fonts are ugly in X (as in, very difficult to read even
at large sizes). You will see a bunch of entries that look something
like this:
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/"
The important thing to note here is that we have the unscaled
bitmapped fonts (the directories misc, 75dpi, 100dpi) before the
scaled fonts (such as Type1 and Speedo). Bitmapped fonts are
preferred for the X Server, because scaled fonts don't look very
pretty for common use, they're better for things like The Gimp or
Netscape, perhaps. You should also do a sanity check to see that
these directories all do, in fact exist, and if you have modified any
lately, you might need to (as root) go in and issue an mkfontdir *
command in the fonts directory.
Note that if you are running a more recent distribution, such as one
based on Red Hat 6.0 or later, you won't have to worry about this, as
the xttfs True Type font server is the default, and does not use the
path system to find your fonts.
7.3. Using Type 1 Fonts in X
The font types X generally accepts are of limited use, considering
that about the only place you'll find fonts of that kind used are in
the X Window System itself, and unfortunately most media junkies and
fontaholics work in operating systems that prefer other formats. Type
1 fonts, most commonly used in conjunction with PostScript document
formats, can be found for free on the internet with considerable ease.
Try <ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/os2/fonts/> for starters.
To make use of these fonts is not that difficult, and graphics
programs like GIMP will take advantage of them tremendously, and best
of all, the Linux X servers understand Type 1 fonts ``out of the
box.'' To use them, first unpack the archive using the appropriate
commands, and put the fonts with a .pfb extension in
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/type1/ on your system. Then, add mention of
those fonts in the fonts.scale file in that directory, using the
format for the other fonts, already there. Then save the file.
Now, you should be able to mkfontdir to tell the X server about the
updates, and then run xset fp rehash to re-read the font path. If this
doesn't work for you, you might have to restart X to see the changes.
If you find yourself using Type 1 fonts a lot, and for things other
than just X (GhostScript, for instance, can handle this font format as
well), you'll want to check out the type1inst utility by James
Macnicol. This program can configure Type 1 fonts for GhostScript and
X, and it can also generate sample sheets for your fonts, and does
most of the work of configuration for you. This program can usually be
found at <ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/X11/xutils/>.
7.4. Using TrueType Fonts in X
If you have been using an operating system such as Windows or the
MacOS, you may have lots of fonts sitting on your computer already
that are TrueType fonts. TrueType fonts are considered best on
smaller, low-resolution displays, such as your computer monitor, and
attempt to provide nice features like shading and antialiasing,
making your display look smoother. It is also really easy to find
cheap TrueType fonts in bulk, and CD's featuring upwards of 500 fonts
in the TrueType format are common in computer stores.
X does not understand TrueType fonts, and has no innate capability (at
present) to do so, and so it needs a separate program to do the font
rendering for it. There is a FreeType library to do this, but if you
just want to use them on your computer, all you will need is a program
called xfstt, the X font server for TrueType. This program should be
available at <ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/X11/fonts/>.
Installation is fairly straightforward. Extract the archive, and make
the file, and then make install. You may get a few errors that don't
make sense after the second command; ignore them. What you need to do
next is create a writable directory called /usr/ttfonts and put some
of your .ttf fonts there, just to make sure it's going to work. Then
synchronize the font server with the command xfstt --sync.
If you got no errors there, run the font server in the background with
the command xfstt & and tell your X11 server about the font service
with the command xset fp+ unix/:7100. If you got no errors, you
should be able to run Netscape, the GIMP, even xfontsel, and have
those fonts available to you. Your biggest problem may be finding the
font you want, but that's not really a bad thing.
It has been brought to my attention that more recent versions of xset
require a slightly modified version of this command, because of
changes in the code of xset. If you are running a distribution based
on Red Hat 6.0 or later, or something equivalent, you will first want
to try xset fp+ unix/:7101.
If everything seems to be working fine, at this point you will want to
configure your system so that the fonts will be working when you start
X. If you are just starting X from the command line, this is easy.
All you have to do is add the two commands from the previous paragraph
to your .xinitrc file, in that order. When you next start X, it
should work just fine. If you are starting X via xdm, you will need
to add /usr/X11R6/bin/xfstt & to /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xdm/Xsetup_0. Got
that? Then add xset fp+ unix/:7100 as well.
Bear in mind that the installation of a TrueType font server can be
tricky business. Remember that the order that you issue the above
commands is important. The font server must be started before X is
started, otherwise you will run into problems. Be sure to read the FAQ
file that came with the distribution, and the xfstt man page too.
Many newer Linux versions come with this already working, so see if
that's not already the case before worrying too much about it.
7.5. Colors
Let's go back to our terminal window and try some more things. Try
opening an xterm with a command line like the following:
xterm -fg darkslateblue -bg red3 &
While that window may not be pretty, and you may not do much of your
best work in it, it demonstrates one interesting theme of X, the names
of the colors. While not very precise, this is a nice way to remember
the colors more easily than remembering a series of hexadecimal
numbers. Note that color names are never case-sensitive.
If you're interested in the gory details, or want to see the samples,
or even want to replace those silly color names with your own for some
strange reason, you can find the file listing all the colors with
their hexadecimal representation in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt on your
system. There are also some extremely useful utilities with names like
xcolorsel and such. They can be found in the usual locations, on
<http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/> and elsewhere.
A more precise way of specifying colors is through the numerical
definition. This consists of a color space name and a set of values
in the following syntax:
<colorspace-name>:<value>/.../<value>
An RGB Device, which you will most likely be using, is specified with
the prefix "rgb:" and has the following syntax:
rgb:<red>/<green>/<blue> , where <color> is a 1 to 4 digit hexadecimal
number.
As an example, you might represent the color red with rgb:ffff/0/0.
For backward compatibility, you can also specify red with a syntax
such as #ff0000 or #ffff00000000, and you will likely be seeing that
(older) syntax a lot.
8. The X Resources
We will at this point consider some finer modifications to your
system. Configuring the window manager only gets you so far. The
window manager lets you customize everything that happens outside the
windows, the frames, the borders, the buttons, the desktop... but what
about making the inside of the windows pretty? The only way to do this
is by modifying the X Resources for your system.
X Resources provide a mechanism for storing default values for program
resources and tailoring your windowing environment to your favored
look and feel. Resources are specified as text strings that are read
in from various places when an application is run. Program components
are named in a hierarchical fashion, with each object in the hierarchy
identified by a class as well as an instance name. At the top level of
the hierarchy is the class and instance name of the application
itself. By convention, the class name of the application is the same
as the program name, but with the first letter capitalized (e.g.
Bitmap or Emacs) although some programs that begin with the letter
``X'' also capitalize the second letter for historical reasons (e.g.
XTerm).
8.1. X Resources: The Basics
Let's try a few examples to ease you into the world of resources.
Start by opening an xterm window. Most likely you have one open
already, can open one with a menu selection, or may wish to backtrack
a bit in this document to get your bearings! Type something like this
into the xterm window:
xterm -background blue &
This command should have resulted in another xterm window popping up
on your screen, but this time with a blue background. ``Wow,'' you
say, ``that's amazing!'' Yes, indeed it is.
We'll need a little more background for our next example. Type exit in
that xterm (which will close that window) and go back to the original
window that you typed that command in. Try this: hold the Ctrl key and
then hold the left mouse button. Now try that with the middle mouse
button. Now the right. All xterm windows give you options to try
while they are running. With the right button, for instance, you can
change the font of the window. Notice the color of these menus. Now
try this example:
xterm -xrm 'xterm*fontMenu*background: green' &
This time, it just looks like a normal xterm window. But if you try
holding Ctrl and the right mouse button in that window, you will see
that this menu (the ``fontMenu'' mentioned in the above example) is
green. What just happened? If you look at the man page for xterm,
you will see many command-line options, such as -background or -font,
that you can set when you launch any given window in X, listed after
the options just for xterm windows. These particular options are
called X Toolkit Options, and they apply to just about anything in X.
8.2. Inside The X Resource Database With editres
To really get inside the resources of X, we need to run editres. Go
ahead and launch it (and a sample program to play with) now:
xclock &
editres &
Probably you will see a simple clock, and the rather innocent looking,
mostly-blank window of editres. The main window is showing us the
resource tree of any given window on our desktop, and upon program
launch, there is none. So let's give it one. Hold down the left button
on the Commands menu, and select Get Tree. In the top of the window
will appear Click the mouse pointer on any toolkit client. This
message is more than it seems, and it is a hint to us that not all X
applications are toolkit clients (though most of the basic ones are,
and the program will usually tell us if it is not in the manual page).
The mouse cursor will turn to a crosshair, and wait for you to click
on another window.
For this example, let's first click on the xclock. You will see a
couple things appear in the editres window. These are the configurable
branches that the toolkit sees. Click on the bottom right one (clock).
It should invert. Now select ``Show Resource Box'' from the
``Commands'' menu. You will see another window pop up, with the
heading ".xclock.clock.unknown". Bingo!
>From here you can toy with the configuration options of the main
xclock window. First, click on ``Set Save File'' at the bottom, and
put in a filename such as /home/yourname/resources, to indicate that
you're testing some of the resources here. Now click on ``foreground''
and put in ``blue'' next to the ``Enter Resource Value:'' prompt. Then
hit ``Apply'' at the bottom. The minute notches around the clock
should turn blue. Go to ``background'' and enter ``navajowhite'' (or
whatever color you prefer). Then apply that. As you can see, we can
configure the whole window just fine this way. But if you were to try
launching another xclock, it would appear just as this one appeared
before any changes. We need to save these changes.
Click ``Save'' and then ``Popdown Resource Box'' (a fancy name indeed
for the ``Close'' function!). If you view the file you just created
(cat /home/yourname/resources perhaps) you will see all those
resources spelled out, in correct X Toolkit format, for your
convenience. But that does us little good, for if you try launching
another xclock, it will still look Plain Jane. So here is the last and
final step in loading in your resources:
xrdb -merge /home/yourname/resources
This command merges the resources we just wrote into the X Resource
Database (xrdb) for your session of X Window. That means that for all
future invocations of the X applications we modified, our changes will
take place, and remain binding. So if you run another xclock, it will
look as nice as you have just now set it up, every time you run it.
Mind you, xrdb is a complex program, and you may want to have a look
at the man page before moving on, or playing around with it some more.
If you added the modification to .xinitrc listed earlier in this
document, to load the resources automatically on X startup, you should
only have to worry about the xrdb command when you make changes during
your X session.
8.3. The Anatomy of X Resources
As you can see we have stumbled across a plethora of configuration
options here. This method of configuring X, as has been stated, offers
nearly limitless possibilities, and an equivalent amount of confusion.
To get some picture of the scope of the resources in just the X
Toolkit Intrinsics alone, run the program viewres, and play around
with it a bit. This program graphically displays the tree of resources
in the Xt Library.
If you read the manual page for X, you will find a rather obscure
definition of the exact syntax for defining resources it understands.
We can simplify this quite a bit and break it down into this essential
syntax definition:
<program><binding><widget><binding><widget><...><resource>:<value>
That doesn't really seem that simple, actually. Well, let's define
some things about what has just been said, and it will all start to
make sense after all. You can peek ahead to the examples in the next
section as you read along, if you wish.
The program in this definition is the invocation of an application in
the resource database. This would be XTerm for an invocation of xterm,
emacs for an invocation of the emacs text editor, or a user-defined
name that was given when the applications was launched with the -name
command line option. In this way you can define separate resources for
xterms which will be used in different ways. Which is pretty cool,
really.
The binding can be one of two characters to separate the widgets and
such. If you use a . (period), you get a tight binding, which means
that one widget is directly above or below the other in the widget
hierarchy. This also has the highest precedence of the specification
methods. If you use a * (asterisk), you get a so-called loose binding,
and you will skip any number of widgets in the hierarchy, and it will
attempt to match the next possible widget defined.
The widget entries are items in the widget tree, in order of most-
specific to least-specific, that they appear in the widget tree,
visible with editres. Any single widget entry can also be replaced
with a ? (question mark) to skip a single widget definition, and match
any possible widget item.
The resource item must be specified, and cannot be replaced with the ?
character. This is the most-specific item in the hierarchy, and
usually contains items like the actual color to define, actual font to
define, and so forth. In fact, everything else before the resource in
this definition can be left out and replaced with a single asterisk,
but the actual resource to define must be present. If you just put an
asterisk and the most-specific resource name, such as *background:
blue, X will attempt to define that resource globally, for all its
clients, if possible.
Following the colon is the value entry. This entry defines what the
resource will be set to, such as a font name or color value. The value
can be specified (depending on context) as a boolean, numeric, or text
data type. The value entry, also, cannot be omitted in a valid
resource definition.
8.4. Making Your Changes Last With .Xdefaults
There is a magic file you can put in your home directory called
.Xdefaults. If you copy the lines in the resources file from the last
example into the .Xdefaults in your home directory, you will never
have to configure xclock again! While this might not be the finest
example of its utility, it makes its point. This file can be crammed
full of every option you prefer for every type of program you run in
X, and if you take proper care of it, you can still easily go back and
make slight changes when you need to. But making lots of changes, and
hunting down lots of subtle resources using editres can be an
extremely tiring and painstaking procedure. Indeed, sometimes that's
too much work, and most of these resources are already waiting for
you, neat and orderly, grouped by program, on your system.
In the directory /var/X11R6/lib/app-defaults you will find a great
many files, all named after an X Toolkit program. If you examine these
files you will find that they contain a great many configuration
options for each one, and I do mean a great many! You would not want
all of these options from all of these files in your .Xdefaults file,
that would be quite tiresome to deal with. These are the defaults, and
it is from these that you can decide what you would like to see
changed for your particular configuration.
The following are some samples from my .Xdefaults file. Notice a few
things we have not yet mentioned about the resource definition files.
If a line begins with ! (exclamation point), it is considered a
comment, and the rest of the line is ignored. If the line begins with
#include filename, that line is an include directive, and at that
point in the resources another file will be merged, when it is loaded.
This can help keep your resource files from becoming too bloated. And
here are some examples:
! Default resources for me@localhost xterms
! start with the generic, move to the specific...
*Dialog*Text*font: -b&h-lucida-medium-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
*dialog*value*background: white
*Dialog*Label*font: -adobe-helvetica-bold-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
*MenuButton*font: -adobe-helvetica-medium-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
*MenuButton*background: grey80
*MenuButton*foreground: black
*Label.font: -adobe-helvetica-medium-r-*-*-10-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
*Label*shadowWidth: 1
*SmeBSB.font: -adobe-helvetica-bold-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
*SimpleMenu*font: -adobe-helvetica-medium-r-*-*-10-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
*OptionMenu*font: -adobe-helvetica-medium-r-*-*-10-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
*Command.font: -linotype-helvetica-bold-r-narrow-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
*commandBox*font: -b&h-lucida-bold-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
*Toggle.font: -adobe-helvetica-bold-o-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
*Form.background: grey70
*TransientShell*Dialog.background: grey70
*Scrollbar.Foreground: grey80
*Scrollbar.Background: grey50
*Scrollbar*cursorName: top_left_arrow
*Scrollbar*width: 16
*shapeStyle: Rectangle
*XlwMenu.shadowThickness: 1
*shadowWidth: 1
! xterm stuff
xterm*scrollbar.background: grey40
xterm*foreground: grey90
xterm*background: grey25
xterm*cursorColor: white
xterm*visualbell: on
! rxvt stuff (a quicker, better xterm)
rxvt*color12: steelblue
rxvt*color15: white
rxvt*color9: rgb:ff/7f/5f
rxvt*foreground: grey90
rxvt*background: grey10
rxvt*cursorColor: white
rxvt*font: lucidasanstypewriter-12
rxvt*loginShell: false
rxvt*saveLines: 1024
rxvt*title: shell
rxvt*geometry: 80x25
! Make Xman just a little bit more sane
xman*topBox: false
xman*background: lightsteelblue
xman*foreground: black
! xcalc is too bland by default...
xcalc*Command.font: -adobe-helvetica-bold-r-*-*-10-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
xcalc*customization: -color
! Disallow the <blink> tag in Netscape
Netscape*blinkingEnabled: False
! Merge other resources (example)
# include $HOME/.otherXresources
One word of warning with regard to X resources, for KDE users.
There's a setting in the control panel which will cause all your X
Resources to be overwritten in your applications. This can be a really
nice feature, but it can also be an annoyance if you have
painstakingly configured your resources. Open the control panel and
find the ``Fonts etc.'' section. There's an option to ``Apply style
to non-KDE apps''. If you turn this on, all your programs will adopt
the look and feel configured by KDE (you may need to restart X to
notice this). If you leave this option turned off, your resources
will remain as you have configured them.
8.5. Your Own User Resource Directory
You can also create a directory of resource files, just like the
system-wide app-defaults directory mentioned above, with one file per
program. Just create the directory (for our example we'll use app-
defaults under your home directory,) and then set the environment
variable XAPPLRESDIR to point to it. A good place to set this variable
would be in the beginning of your .xinitrc file, for example, put in
the line export XAPPLRESDIR=$HOME/app-defaults (if your files are
going to be in an app-defaults directory under your home directory).
Now, whenever you start an X program, this directory will be searched
for a file with the same name as the resource name of the program,
just like the system-wide directory. This is the client name that you
used in .Xdefaults files.
For example, a file called XTerm could contain the line *background:
gold, and all your xterms would, by default, come up with a gold
background. This is a nice alternative to a single .Xdefaults file,
and makes it more clear when trying to decide which settings to
configure later on, and to find the ones for a certain program. There
are still uses for the .Xdefaults, though. It's useful for setting
resources not bound to a single program, like modifications that you
would make to turn all of a certain kind of button blue, regardless of
the application.
9. Clients and Application Tips
We have covered a few clients in X, and this section will cover some
more. We will limit our discussion here to the most basic and
important core items, those which come with X or you are likely to
find yourself using with X. If you have installed an integrated
desktop environment such as KDE or GNOME, you will have many others to
choose from which likely perform many of the same functions. However,
it is important to know about and understand many of the fundamental
programs in X, because they can be very useful for working with your
environment and such. Also X offers many new options that even your
normal console applications can take advantage of.
9.1. Screen Savers for X
A common feature of many operating systems is the ability to blank the
screen after a specified amount of time, and optionally display some
sort of nifty graphics demo thing, a screen saver. There are a couple
ways to do that in X, too.
The most basic way to use this feature is by putting a command in your
.xinitrc startup file such as xset dpms 2400 3600 4800. The xset
program can configure the screen saving features of the X server, not
to be confused with the screen blanking that the kernel does when you
are at the text console. With the dpms option, X can use the power
saving features of your monitor as well. The first option configures
how many seconds before the screen blanks, the second option is how
many seconds before the power saving feature starts, and the third
option is for the "off" mode. Turning on an option implicitly enables
the feature, setting a feature to zero explicitly disables it.
Many Linux distributions come with xlock preinstalled, or as an
option. This is a pretty basic and fairly nice screen saver. If you
run it with the -nolock option, you can see some of the modes that it
offers, and if you leave that option off, it will ask you for a
password when you move the mouse or press a key, as a security
feature. Note that this is no real security, for at a Linux console a
user could restart the computer or just drop out of X with a
combination of keystrokes. The last method can be disabled, however,
and if you are using xdm, it will offer as much security as your
login, so it may be that only rebooting will let someone in.
A newer and better program is xscreensaver by Jamie Zawinski. This
program offers a great many niceties, for instance, it can run its
processes at a nicer priority level, lessening the load to the system
while it's running, and it automatically detects when the screen has
been powered down by xset and doesn't waste processor time. Also, all
of the graphics routines it calls are modular demos, and you can add
routines without upgrading the whole package, and it can also call
other programs, such as xearth or xdaliclock, as modules.
The latest version of xscreensaver can be found at
<http://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/>. Once you get it installed and
ready to go, here are some nice additions you might wish to add to
your .Xdefaults file:
!!! some XScreenSaver sample defaults
! Time out after 3 minutes, cycle mode after each 2
xscreensaver.timeout: 3
xscreensaver.cycle: 2
! Run very low priority, and fade between modes
xscreensaver.nice: 12
xscreensaver.fadeSeconds: 2
9.2. Emacs and XEmacs
If you are a fan of the text editor EMACS, or just someone who uses it
a lot, you will find your work even easier in X Windows. If you have
not tried XEmacs, you may want to get it for use in X. There are
features in XEmacs that are nice even if you are not in X, for
instance, your text can be colored to match the markup style you are
editing automatically. You should give the following modification to
your .emacs file a shot, and read the info pages for more options.
Also look for an option to edit faces in the menus.
(global-font-lock-mode t)
(setq font-lock-maximum-decoration t)
9.3. Some Useful Programs and Tricks
appres
The appres program prints the resources seen by an application
(or sub-hierarchy of an application) with the specified class
and instance names. It can be used to determine which resources
a particular program will load. Useful for debugging your X
defaults and such.
rclock
Many distributions come with this nice replacement for xclock,
which saves memory, alerts you when your mail comes, and can pop
up reminder messages and launch programs. The Battery-Powered
Mini-HOWTO contains instructions on patching this utility to
show how much battery is left in your laptop, too.
rxvt
A nice replacement for xterm - uses less memory, works faster,
lets you put in a background pixmap, and lets you switch fonts
with keyboard hotkeys, rather than menus.
xcpustate
Displays CPU state (idle, nice, system, kernel) statistics, as
well as Ethernet information.
xearth
Display the earth on your root window, many options for display
available. Xscreensaver can use this as a screensaver module,
for maximum fun.
xfig
A vector drawing program, particularly useful for charts and
documentation. Quite useful but hard to get the hang of at
first.
xfontsel
Font selection utility for X Window. Try the command xterm -fn
`xfontsel -print` & to pick a font and then open the xterm
window using that font.
xload
Monitor your memory usage with a moving graph or the lights on
your keyboard! If you use Window Maker, look for wmmon to do the
same, but prettier.
xmag
A magnifying glass for X, with a couple other useful features.
xman
Manual page browser for X. If the little box it starts with
gets annoying, launch it with the -notopbox option.
xmodmap
Edit and display the keyboard modifier map and keymap table that
are used by client applications to convert event keycodes into
keysyms, usually run from user's startup script. An example was
given earlier in this document, see the man pages for more info.
xpaint
Basic bitmap painting program, for any real work you should grab
GIMP <http://www.gimp.org/>.
xset
User preference utility for X. You can change all sorts of stuff
with this. For instance, xset s 600 sets the screen to blank
after ten minutes.
xsetroot
Change the color of your desktop. If you have a color selector
program like xcolorsel installed, try a command like xsetroot
-solid `xcolorsel` to pick a color and set your desktop to that
color.
xwininfo
You can run this program and click on any window for lots of
useful information about it.
The Intellimouse
You can use the Intellimouse in X with a great many
applications. There is an excellent resource page located at
<http://www.inria.fr/koala/colas/mouse-wheel-scroll/>.
10. Advanced X Usage
There's a lot to learn about X, a lot of info buried in the
inscrutible land of man pages, a lot of things most folks don't bother
reading. Some if it is rather important, and it's easy to make some
mistakes, and get completely stuck. It can be much harder to build a
program in X, or check the security of X, or many other things,
because X and all the things that run on top of it are so vast. This
section is an attempt to cover some of the more advanced and confusing
situations that may arise.
10.1. Libraries and Compiling X Applications
Sooner or later you will have to deal with compiling applications of
your own. Later, if you just installed a nice distribution of linux,
and are happy with what you've got, sooner, if you're the kind of
person who likes to tinker and install. Remember, this is a privilege,
not a right, so have fun with it!
First, a few pointers on compiling programs with X. Many newer
applications, GNU applictions in particular, come with a script in the
root directory called configure. This assumes of course that you've
extracted the file and are in the directory. This program should be
run as ./configure, and will automatically detect many things about
your system. Afterwards, simply running make and perhaps becoming
root and running make install will get the program up on your system.
You may have to do a little more tinkering if you do not have a
configure script available. Many X programs require you to run a
program to make the Makefile, called xmkmf. If you don't see a
Makefile in your directory, this will sometimes work, and will
generate a suitable configuration for you, and you'll be ready to make
from there.
Sometimes you will have run the configure script, and have been warned
that you lack a library that would be helpful or necessary to properly
use that application. For instance, I recently installed the
xscreensaver application, and found that it would support several 3D
modes if the Mesa library was installed. If you run into this
situation and want that library installed, the first thing you should
do is check the CD or installation media for your Linux distribution
to see if you have the library on there. That may save you lots of
trouble trying to compile the library.
Once you get a library compiled and installed and ready to use, you
can go back to the directory you were installing your X program from,
remove the config.cache file, and run the configure script again.
Hopefully it will find the library you have installed. Sometimes it
does not, and you have to tinker to get it working. This happens
occasionally with libraries you download off the net, that do not
adequately support the Linux File System Standard (most do, however).
10.2. Basic X Security
It has often been said that X has a very simple security model: All or
Nothing. This is not much of an exaggeration at all. X can be
configured to use somewhat sophisticated security, via encryption, but
that is beyond the scope of this HOWTO (for the present). It is
assumed that the user is not using any encryption for this discussion.
First of all, you should try and follow some simple rules when you're
compiling programs for X (or for any reason, really). Try not to
become root any more than necessary. Configure your programs as a
normal user with the ./configure && make (or just make if there's no
configure script), and then issue the single command to install it as
root by typing su -c "make install", and then typing in the root
password at the prompt. That way you won't have to be logged in as
root, you can just issue a single command, and you're back to your
normal user prompt. This is a smart, safe way to install software.
The next thing to think about is running X software as root. Realize
that X is more or less inherently insecure, and if your primary
concern for a particular Linux box is security, you really don't want
to install X at all! Having said that, some folks want to run nice
fancy configuration programs or package management tools in X. I do
not recommend starting X as root. It's just not a good idea. There's
much, much better ways to do these things!
If you want to run an X application as root, just log in under your
normal user account, and launch it from there. As I mentioned above,
you don't want to be logged in as root any more than absolutely
necessary. The root user has the ability to do just about anything on
the system, including about a million ways to destroy it completely.
Simply go to your xterm or such application and type in a command such
as su -c "glint -display :0.0" to launch the window on your desktop.
Now you have a single window running as root, and not the whole
desktop. You might also want to consider using the complete pathname
to the program you're running as root, for extra security.
Tomasz Motylewski also offers the following tip for ssh and ssh-agent
lovers. If you put the following in your
/usr/X11R6/lib/xinit/Xclients file:
eval "exec ssh-agent fvwm${FVWMVER} ${FVWMOPTIONS}" >
"$HOME"/.FVWM${FVWMVER}-errors 2>&
That is, replace your standard fvwm${FVWMVER} ${FVWMOPTIONS} command
with the preceeding. That is to start your window manager as a child
of ssh-agent. Then you should try ssh-add < /dev/null from an xterm
session (if you have your identity RSA key in the file
/.ssh/identity). If this works for you then you should find that you
are authenticated in all your X windows.
It should be noted that this is a suggestion from the reader, and the
author has no experience with ssh at the present, so proceed at your
own risk! More recent Linux distributions allow for setting up ssh
automatically, via setup or something similar, which means that you
may not have to worry too much about setting it up, just understanding
how it works.
10.3. More About X Authority
The mysteries of user authentication in X are a prime example of the
security problems many users encounter with X. Tomasz Motylewski
relates the following story, which sums up the situation quite well.
``...in the default XFree86 configuration X session started by
``startx'' accepts commands from everyone connecting from localhost.
If you start X as user1 and you have user2 remotely logged in, user2
has full access to your keyboard and desktop (once my friend played a
joke on me and put in his cron commands dumping my X desktop image and
sending to him every hour). I did not notice it for 2 weeks!''
Well that's not exactly a good thing, but unfortunately many readers
have this exact problem. Tomasz goes on to point out that if you use
xdm to log in (as detailed earlier in this HOWTO), rather than just
running startx, this won't be a problem because access is controlled
by the xauth program. By issuing the xhost command, you can see who
is allowed access to your X session. Any user from the hosts that are
listed in the output of the xhost command is authorized full access to
your screen and keyboard.
If you want to start your X server in a secure fashion from the
command line, you will need to make the following modifications to
your configuration. First, modify startx (probably at
/usr/X11R6/bin/startx) by changing the last line xinit $clientargs --
$serverargs to read exec xinit $clientargs -- $serverargs -auth
~/.Xauthority.
Then you will also need to edit your .xinitrc or your system-wide
/usr/X11R6/lib/xinit/xinitrc (whichever you are actually using,
probably the one in your home directory), by adding this at the
beginning of the file:
# if Xserver has been run with "-auth ~/.Xauthority" option
this will
# prevent other users on your machine to connect to your X server
# unless you allow it explicitly using xhost +host or give them
# your ~/.Xauthority file.
xauth generate $DISPLAY . trusted
Always be sure and run xhost to check the security that you have
configured, to make sure everything is working correctly.
11. Bibliography and Other Resources
There is lots of information on X Window to be found, on your computer
right now, on the Internet, and in some excellent books available at
your favorite bookseller. Give some of the following resources a try,
they have been extremely helpful to the author, and can be extremely
helpful to you, too.
· Check the Linux Documentation Project <http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP>
website for a lot more documentation on Linux, X, and related
items.
· <http://www.x11.org/>is sort of a clearinghouse for all things X.
· <http://www.themes.org/>is a headquarters for themes for various
window managers.
· The X Consortium's web site is <http://www.x.org/>... or perhaps
it's moved to <http://www.opengroup.com/>.
· XFree86 can be found at <http://www.xfree86.org/>.
· The O'Reilly series on X Window! Visit <http://www.ora.com/>for
the definitive books on X.
· Much more information on using TrueType with X is at
<http://www.freetype.org/>.
· The man pages for X, xterm, XFree86, and for any other clients you
find yourself using often, are very useful and quite information-
packed, and highly recommended. As the oft-repeated saying goes,
RTFM.
· There is a Remote X Apps MINI-HOWTO that is very helpful in
figuring out how to run local and remote clients with X.
· Don't forget to visit <http://www.gnome.org/> and
<http://www.kde.org/> for the latest on unified desktop
environments in Linux, which are becoming more and more commonplace
all the time.
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