Chapter 15: Managing X Servers and X Clients

Overview

Chapter 16) and KDE (see Chapter 17).

While most veteran Linux administrators prefer the command-line interface, they should recognize that many users have a legitimate need for the GUI. To this end, Red Hat Linux includes the X Client and X Server system developed by the XFree86 project (www.xfree86.org). Linux GUIs use this client-server structure.

You may have already configured the X Window and installed GNOME and/or KDE when you installed Red Hat Linux. As long as you’ve installed the basic X packages, you can use the basic xf86config or redhat-config-xfree86 tools to configure the X Window on your computer.

The critical X Window configuration file is XF86Config, in the /etc/X11 directory. It includes a number of sections that we’ll analyze in detail. There are several other significant X Window configuration files that can help you customize your system. This chapter covers the following topics:

Using the basic configuration tools

Understanding the configuration files

Troubleshooting the X Window