<HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >Installing 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="Hardware requirements" HREF="x68.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="Configuring XFree86" HREF="x111.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="x68.html" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="x111.html" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="SECT1" ><H1 CLASS="SECT1" ><A NAME="AEN81" >3. Installing XFree86</A ></H1 ><P >It's quite likely that you obtained XFree86 as part of a Linux distribution, in which case downloading the software separately is not necessary. Or you may be able to get RPM binary packages built for your machine, in which case you can just install those using rpm(1). In either case you can skip this the rest of this section.</P ><P >The Linux binary distributions of XFree86 can be found on a number of FTP sites. On the XFree86 site they are <A HREF="ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/4.1.0/binaries/" TARGET="_top" >here</A >. You will want either the Linux-axp-glibc21, Linux-ix86-glibc20, or Linux-ix86-glibc21 subdirectories, depending on your processor type (axp=alpha, ix86=Intel 80x86) and Gnu C library version.</P ><P >Before doing anything else, download and run the `Xinstall.sh' shell script first. This may tell you about prerequisites you'll need to have in place before continuing your installation. Complete instructions for installing the XFree86 binary distribution are at <A HREF="http://www.xfree86.org/4.1.0/Install2.html" TARGET="_top" >http://www.xfree86.org/4.1.0/Install2.html</A >.</P ><P >The binary directory should contain release notes for the current version in <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >RELNOTES</TT >. Consult those for installation details.</P ><P >All that is required to install XFree86 is to obtain the above files, create the directory <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >/usr/X11R6</TT > (as <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >root</TT >), and unpack the files from <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >/usr/X11R6</TT > with a command such as:</P ><TABLE BORDER="1" BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" WIDTH="100%" ><TR ><TD ><FONT COLOR="#000000" ><PRE CLASS="SCREEN" >gzip -dc Xbin.tgz | tar xfB -</PRE ></FONT ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><P >Remember that these tar files are packed relative to <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >/usr/X11R6</TT >, so it's important to unpack the files there.</P ><P >You need to make sure that <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >/usr/X11R6/bin</TT > is on your path. This can be done by editing your system default <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >/etc/profile</TT > or <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >/etc/csh.login</TT > (based on the shell that you, or other users on your system, use). Or you can simply add the directory to your personal path by modifying <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >.bashrc</TT > or <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >.cshrc</TT >, based on your shell.</P ><P >You also need to make sure that <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >/usr/X11R6/lib</TT > can be located by <B CLASS="COMMAND" >ld.so</B >, the runtime linker. To do this, add the line:</P ><TABLE BORDER="1" BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" WIDTH="100%" ><TR ><TD ><FONT COLOR="#000000" ><PRE CLASS="SCREEN" >/usr/X11R6/lib</PRE ></FONT ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><P >to the file <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >/etc/ld.so.conf</TT >, and run <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >/sbin/ldconfig</TT >, as <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >root</TT >.</P ></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="x68.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="x111.html" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >Hardware requirements</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" > </TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >Configuring XFree86</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >