From owner-freebsd-questions Sat May 16 05:05:59 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id FAA06004 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Sat, 16 May 1998 05:05:59 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from lucy.bedford.net (lucy.bedford.net [206.99.145.54]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id FAA05998 for ; Sat, 16 May 1998 05:05:52 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from listread@lucy.bedford.net) Received: (from listread@localhost) by lucy.bedford.net (8.8.8/8.8.8) id HAA27206; Sat, 16 May 1998 07:51:54 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from listread) Message-Id: <199805161151.HAA27206@lucy.bedford.net> Subject: Re: Configuring the X Window In-Reply-To: <355D6E44.4E62D0A5@portalinc.com> from - U L Y - at "May 16, 98 06:45:24 pm" To: mvrck@snap.portalinc.com (- U L Y -) Date: Sat, 16 May 1998 07:51:54 -0400 (EDT) Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Reply-to: djv@bedford.net From: CyberPeasant X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL38 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG - U L Y - wrote: > Dear Sirs, > > successful... afterwards...I shut it down and reboot the PC, after > logging in, I type X and then the screen turns into grey with a big X > for a cursor inside the screen...and it just stays there for i don't > know how long... ( I tried leaving it for 2 hours and when i came back, > it is still there, no change in the screen, although the cursor can move > around freely,) > > What had happened? Is it the way i configured it or my devices don't > support the settings I gave them? > OK, nothing is wrong. X is just the server, i.e. the display manager. It doesn't know anything about windows, starting applications, etc etc. In general, you don't start X by just starting the server. The usual way to start it is with the command "startx". This is a shell script located in /usr/X11R6/bin/startx. Startx does some very essential housekeeping functions, and then calls a program "xinit". xinit starts your server (X itself), and in its default form, opens a couple of terminal windows, the starts a window manager named twm. The window manager is the thing that controls opening, resizing, moving windows around, i.e. is the user interface and "look and feel". Most users prefer a different window manager. Fvwm2 is a popular choice; install the fvwm2 package, and read the fvwm2 man page. To get it started, you will edit /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit/xinitrc, the startup script for xinit. The last part of this script, set up to run fvwm2 rather than twm, looks like this on a system of mine: if [ -f /usr/X11R6/bin/fvwm2 ]; then exec /usr/X11R6/bin/fvwm2 else twm & xclock -geometry 50x50-1+1 & xterm -geometry 80x50+494+51 & xterm -geometry 80x20+494-0 & exec xterm -geometry 80x50+0+0 -name login fi The five lines starting with "twm &" are in the original. man X is interesting reading. Also man Xserver, man startx and man xinit Dave -- <----. mail-to: djv@bedford.net <----|=================================== <----' To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message