<HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >Configuring XFree86</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.63 "><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="The Linux XFree86 HOWTO" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="Installing XFree86" HREF="x81.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="Running XFree86" HREF="x121.html"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="SECT1" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#840084" ALINK="#0000FF" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="3" ALIGN="center" >The Linux XFree86 HOWTO</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="x81.html" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="x121.html" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="SECT1" ><H1 CLASS="SECT1" ><A NAME="AEN111" >4. Configuring XFree86</A ></H1 ><DIV CLASS="SECT2" ><H2 CLASS="SECT2" ><A NAME="AEN113" >4.1. Normal Configuration</A ></H2 ><P >Configuring XFree86 to use your mouse, keyboard, monitor, and video card correctly used to be something of a black art, requiring extensive hand-hacking of a complex configuration file. No more; recent releases have made the process nearly trivial. It simplifies matters a lot that there are no longer separate servers for different kinds of cards, just modules loaded by a common server.</P ><P >If you're enabling X as you intall a Linux distribution, the distribution install script will ask the few questions needed to configure X. Otherwise, all you need do to configure it is fire up the command <B CLASS="COMMAND" >XFree86 -configure</B >.</P ><P >Both methods depend on the fact that all new PC hardware these days ships with monitors that can tell X what their capabilities are. When invoked in this mode, X does that query and also polls your hardware for the presence of a mouse and keyboard. It then writes out a configuration file thar is used by later runs of X.</P ><P >One minor point to keep in mind is that, if you're like most people using a current PC, your keyboard is actually what <B CLASS="COMMAND" >XF86Setup</B > calls `Generic 102-key PC (intl)' rather than the default `Generic 101-key PC'. If you pick the default (101) the key cluster on the extreme right of your keyboard (numeric keypad and friends) may stop working.</P ></DIV ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="x81.html" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="x121.html" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >Installing XFree86</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" > </TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >Running XFree86</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >