11.1. | What is the X Window System? |
The X Window System (commonly Many implementations are available for different
architectures and operating systems. An implementation of
the server-side code is properly known as an | |
11.2. | I want to run Xorg, how do I go about it? |
To install Xorg do one of the following: Use the x11/xorg meta-port, which builds and installs every Xorg component. Use x11/xorg-minimal, which builds and installs only the necessary Xorg components. Install Xorg from FreeBSD packages:
After the installation of Xorg, follow the instructions from the X11 Configuration section of the FreeBSD Handbook. | |
11.3. | I tried to run X, but I get a
No devices detected. error when I
type |
The system is probably running at a raised
There are two solutions to the problem: set the
See Q: 11.10 for more information about running xdm(1) at boot time. | |
11.4. | Why does my mouse not work with X? |
When using vt(4), the default console
driver, FreeBSD can be configured to support a mouse pointer
on each virtual screen. To avoid conflicting with X,
vt(4) supports a virtual device called
Then edit Section "InputDevice" Option "Protocol" "SysMouse" Option "Device" "/dev/sysmouse" ..... Starting with Xorg version 7.4, the
Option "AutoAddDevices" "false" Some people prefer to use
link sysmouse mouse This link can be created by restarting devfs(5)
with the following command (as
| |
11.5. | My mouse has a fancy wheel. Can I use it in X? |
Yes, if X is configured for a 5 button mouse. To
do this, add the lines Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Mouse1" Driver "mouse" Option "Protocol" "auto" Option "Device" "/dev/sysmouse" Option "Buttons" "5" Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" EndSection The mouse can be enabled in
Emacs by adding these
lines to ;; wheel mouse (global-set-key [mouse-4] 'scroll-down) (global-set-key [mouse-5] 'scroll-up) | |
11.6. | My laptop has a Synaptics touchpad. Can I use it in X? |
Yes, after configuring a few things to make it work. In order to use the Xorg synaptics driver,
first remove To enable synaptics, add the following line to
hw.psm.synaptics_support="1" Add the following to
Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Touchpad0" Driver "synaptics" Option "Protocol" "psm" Option "Device" "/dev/psm0" EndSection And be sure to add the following into the “ServerLayout” section: InputDevice "Touchpad0" "SendCoreEvents" | |
11.7. | How do I use remote X displays? |
For security reasons, the default setting is to not allow a machine to remotely open a window. To enable this feature, start
X with the optional
| |
11.8. | What is a virtual console and how do I make more? |
Virtual consoles provide several simultaneous sessions on the same machine without doing anything complicated like setting up a network or running X. When the system starts, it will display a login prompt on the monitor after displaying all the boot messages. Type in your login name and password to start working on the first virtual console. To start another session, perhaps to look at documentation for a program or to read mail while waiting for an FTP transfer to finish, hold down Alt and press F2. This will display the login prompt for the second virtual console. To go back to the original session, press Alt+F1. The default FreeBSD installation has eight virtual consoles enabled. Alt+F1, Alt+F2, Alt+F3, and so on will switch between these virtual consoles. To enable more of virtual consoles, edit
# Edit the existing entry for ttyv8 in /etc/ttys and change # "off" to "on". ttyv8 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" xterm on secure ttyv9 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" xterm on secure ttyva "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" xterm on secure ttyvb "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" xterm on secure The more virtual
terminals, the more resources that are used. This can be
problematic on systems with 8 MB RAM or less.
Consider changing Important:In order to run an X server, at least one virtual
terminal must be left to For example, to run X and eleven virtual consoles, the setting for virtual terminal 12 should be: ttyvb "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" xterm off secure The easiest way to activate the virtual consoles is to reboot. | |
11.9. | How do I access the virtual consoles from X? |
Use Ctrl+Alt+F Once at a text console, use
Alt+F To return to the X session, switch to the
virtual console running X. If X was started from the
command line using | |
11.10. | How do I start XDM on boot? |
There are two schools of thought on how to start
xdm(1). One school starts The ttys(5) method has the advantage of
documenting which vty X will start on and passing the
responsibility of restarting the X server on logout to
init(8). The rc(8) method makes it easy to
If loaded from rc(8), When starting :0 local /usr/local/bin/X vt4 The above example will direct the X server to run in
| |
11.11. | Why do I get Couldn't open
console when I run
|
When X is started with
This is because of the way console permissions are set by default. On a multi-user system, one does not necessarily want just any user to be able to write on the system console. For users who are logging directly onto a machine with a VTY, the fbtab(5) file exists to solve such problems. In a nutshell, make sure an uncommented line of the
form is in /dev/ttyv0 0600 /dev/console It will ensure that whomever logs in on
| |
11.12. | Why does my PS/2 mouse misbehave under X? |
The mouse and the mouse driver may have become out of synchronization. In rare cases, the driver may also erroneously report synchronization errors: psmintr: out of sync (xxxx != yyyy) If this happens, disable the synchronization check
code by setting the driver flags for the PS/2 mouse driver
to | |
11.13. | How do I reverse the mouse buttons? |
Type
| |
11.14. | How do I install a splash screen and where do I find them? |
The detailed answer for this question can be found in the Boot Time Splash Screens section of the FreeBSD Handbook. | |
11.15. | Can I use the Windows keys on my keyboard in X? |
Yes. Use xmodmap(1) to define which functions the keys should perform. Assuming all Windows keyboards are standard, the keycodes for these three keys are the following:
To have the left Windows key print a comma, try this.
To have the Windows key-mappings
enabled automatically every time X is started, either put
the xmodmap $HOME/.xmodmaprc For example, to map the 3 keys to be F13, F14, and F15, respectively. This would make it easy to map them to useful functions within applications or the window manager. To do this, put the following in
keycode 115 = F13 keycode 116 = F14 keycode 117 = F15 For the x11-wm/fvwm2 desktop manager, one could map the keys so that F13 iconifies or de-iconifies the window the cursor is in, F14 brings the window the cursor is in to the front or, if it is already at the front, pushes it to the back, and F15 pops up the main Workplace menu even if the cursor is not on the desktop, which is useful when no part of the desktop is visible. The following entries in
Key F13 FTIWS A Iconify Key F14 FTIWS A RaiseLower Key F15 A A Menu Workplace Nop | |
11.16. | How can I get 3D hardware acceleration for OpenGL®? |
The availability of 3D acceleration depends on the version of Xorg and the type of video chip. For an nVidia chip, use the binary drivers provided for FreeBSD by installing one of the following ports: The latest versions of nVidia cards are supported by the x11/nvidia-driver port. Older drivers are available as
x11/nvidia-driver- nVidia provides detailed information on which
card is supported by which driver on their web site: For Matrox G200/G400, check the x11-drivers/xf86-video-mga port. For ATI Rage 128 and Radeon see ati(4), r128(4) and radeon(4). |
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