[vox-tech] XF86Config Question

[Peter Jay Salzman]

On Wed 12 Jan 05,  9:43 AM, Robert G. Scofield <rscofield at afes.com> said:
> On Wednesday 12 January 2005 03:26, Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
> >
> >
> > Also, don't forget about "XFree86 -configure".  This will get you in the
> > right ballpark.  After writing a reasonable XF86Config-4 file, you can fine
> > tune your way to the front row seats.
> 
> First, thanks to you and Jeff for responding.
> 
> XFree86 -configure doesn't work for some reason.
 
Were you root when you did this?

I would have hoped you'd know better than to say "something doesn't work"
and leave it at that.

> Here's what I think will be my last question.  I am at the stage where I am 
> supposed to set up an X server by making a symbolic link to /usr/X11R6/bin/X
 
You don't need to (you shouldn't) do that.

> In *Linux Unleashed* (Third ed. 1998) an X server is said to be a driver.

Throw the book away.  Programs like "ls" and "cat" are eternal.  Everything
else changes on the order of magnitude of a few years.  That book describes
X3 from a LONG time ago.  It's useless to you.  Worse.  It's harmful.
You're using X4.  Much nicer.  Convenient.  *should* work out of the box.

Unless for some reason you really are installing X3?  Is it even still
available in sarge?

> one example given of a driver that is a server is this one:  XF86_VGA16.  
> Another example is given in the book's illustration of how to set the server 
> up:
> 
> ln -s /usr/X11R6/bin/XF86_SVA  /usr/X11R6/bin/X
 
You used to have to do this painful awful garbage, but thankfully not in a
long time.

Gee, between XFree86, modems, the cheesey games, and distros actually
defaulting to fvwm95, this email has reminded me of how much Linux has truly
changed in the past 5 years.

It's absolutely unrecognizable from what I had originally installed off a
Redhat 5.1 disk.  LOL.

Pete  (who really used to compute his own video modes)