TITLE: XFree86
LFS VERSION: 4.0+
AUTHORS: Sam Halliday <fommil AT yahoo DOT ie>
SYNOPSIS:
This hint covers the building and initial configuration of an XFree86
server and client (XWindows). The setup of DRI (graphics acceleration) is also
shown for those who have such a capable card (for a recent list of supported
cards, see http://dri.sourceforge.net/doc/feature_table.html)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
This hint is a combination of hints x11.txt, xfree86_41.txt,
xfree86_42.txt, xfree86_4.2.0_dri.txt, nvidia_glx and dri.txt. For that
reason, credits are due to
Matthias Benkmann <m DOT s DOT b AT gmx DOT net>
Marc Heerdink <marc AT koelkast DOT net>
Dave Ayers <fogey AT mindspring DOT com>
Luke Guest <laguest AT nebulas DOT demon DOT co DOT uk>
Ryan Strayer <rstrayer AT kc DOT rr DOT com>
manaveru <manaveru AT manaveru DOT net>
Sergey Ostrovsky <sostrovsky AT snip DOT net>
Further credit must be given to
Jim Gifford <jim AT jg555 DOT com>
for the bison fix.
CHANGELOG:
0.01 first release.
0.02 suggestions by Matthias Benkmann.
0.03 suggestions by Marc Heerdink.
0.04 building of glut added, more from Matthias Benkmann.
0.05 updated ttmkfdir, cleaned configuration, better xfs initscript.
0.06 fixed typo in the host.def file which breaks compilation :(
added note about newer XFree86 version.
WHY YOU MIGHT WANT THIS HINT:
Unless you really, _really_ want XFree86-4.2.1 for some specific
reason, do NOT use this hint. XFree86-4.3 is (almost) out and you should
use that instead. This hint exists simply as a legacy hint as it explains
a lot of detail in setting up an X server, which is still applicable.
HINT:
Software you need
=================
XFree86-4.2.0:
ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/4.2.0/source/X420src-*.tgz
This is the 3-part source code for XFree86, uncompress all 3 tarballs
from the same location.
XFree86 patch from 4.2.0 to 4.2.1:
ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/4.2.1/patches/4.2.0-4.2.1.diff.gz
This will update your source to the bugfixed patch release 4.2.1. This
is highly reccomended.
SHM Security Fix:
ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/4.2.1/fixes/4.2.1-mit-shm-security.patch
This patch applies to the 4.2.1 tree and fixes a security issue with
xdm, X's graphical login.
Jim Gifford's bison syntax patch:
http://www.jg555.com/cvs/cvsweb.cgi/patches/xfree/xfree-4.2.x.-bison.fixes.patch
This fixes some syntax issues in the source code which are only picked
up by more recent versions of bison. It is a good idea to use this patch, even
if you have an older version of bison.
The ttmkfdir tool, soon to be obsoleted in XFree86-4.3
http://people.redhat.com/yshao/ttmkfdir2.20021109.tar.bz2
This is needed for making a fonts.scale file for TTF fonts.
MesaLib and MesaDemos (for glut)
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=3
SECURITY
========
Make sure you check all the MD5SUMs against the ones you download. Most trojan
attempts of late have failed to do this, and this is therefore our only weapon
against such attacks (which is flawed anyway if there is no GPG signature)
ad43a8e9e39703322005cd6f7145b77f X420src-1.tgz
dae33268a9f2735b9678a81fb23e8d3e X420src-2.tgz
560899e175a02ab592185b69756f539e X420src-3.tgz
38adc94a4953a6b29e8619c25dda4887 4.2.0-4.2.1.diff.gz
18eb56110c7f66895111bd9f3513b54e 4.2.1-mit-shm-security.patch
79e0401393c9728865aa73bb2bd68dd4 ttmkfdir2.20021109.tar.bz2
ebfac20c7fe7943243bc54a4b755f50d MesaDemos-5.0.tar.bz2
df44d99ae97c5c0df631575757a96d86 MesaLib-5.0.tar.bz2
Apply all the patches before proceeding
ORDER
=====
This hint will start by showing how to quickly build XFree86, then how to
configure the X server and check that it works. Next we set up the font
server and add truetype font support and build glut. For those lucky ones
out there, we set up graphics acceleration. The graphics acceleration
appears in several sections; standard DRI, bleeding edge DRI, bad news about
voodoo cards and finally setting up NVidia cards.
Building XFree86
================
XFree does not use the standard GNU tools for building and installing. It uses
a load of C header files to allow us the power to define the parts which we
need to compile... good for future re-compiles. The many options are clear
from browsing the files in config/cf. But for most peoples needs, the following
should suffice.
You may wish to tailor the DefaultGcc2i386Opt define to reflect your hardware,
if you have a different architecture altogether from i*86, use DefaultGcc2AxpOpt
or DefaultGcc2PpcOpt to define the optimisation flags for an Alpha or PPC,
respectively. Set HasMTRRSupport, HasMMXSupport, HasKatmaiSupport and
Has3DNowSupport to YES if you have a CPU capable of those instructions.
You can see if your CPU has MTRR, MMX, or Katmai support by looking at the
'flags' section of /proc/cpuinfo.
This will add support for all graphics cards, feel free to choose only the
modules you require if you are sure about your choice. If your card is not
supported under DRI (graphics acceleration), then you should say NO to
BuildXF86DRI and BuildXF86DRM. Please note this is a C header file not a
bash script, so the # are not comments but the /* comments */ are.
cat > config/cf/host.def << "EOF"
/* LFS HINT XFree86-4.2.1 0.02 */
#define DefaultGcc2i386Opt -s -O3 -fomit-frame-pointer
#define GccWarningOptions -w -pipe
#define TermcapLibrary -lncurses
#define HasZlib YES
#define HasNCurses YES
#define HasMTRRSupport NO /* Also to be enabled in the kernel */
#define HasMMXSupport NO /* Any i586 or above */
#define HasKatmaiSupport NO /* PIII SSE instuctions */
#define Has3DNowSupport NO /* AMD instructions */
#define XInputDrivers mouse void
/* build all drivers available */
#define XF86CardDrivers mga glint nv tga s3 s3virge sis rendition \
neomagic i740 tdfx savage cirrus vmware \
tseng trident chips apm GlideDriver fbdev \
i128 ati AgpGartDrivers DevelDrivers ark \
cyrix siliconmotion vesa vga \
XF86OSCardDrivers XF86ExtraCardDrivers
#define BuildXF86DRI YES
#define BuildXF86DRM YES
#define DriDrivers gamma tdfx mga i810 i830 r128 radeon sis
#define BuildLinuxDocHtml NO
#define BuildLinuxDocPS NO
#define BuildAllSpecsDocs NO
#define BuildHtmlManPages NO
#define BuildSpecsDocs NO
/* future `update' compiles do not need these, in that case say NO */
#define InstallXinitConfig YES
#define InstallXdmConfig YES
#define InstallFSConfig YES
EOF
OK.. thats the hard bit out of the way! Now we compile it and have a cuppa!
make World >xcompile.stdout 2>xcompile.stderr
(some people may prefer to watch the screen tick by, but as the console is
a slow device, this will actually slow down the compile, but if you insist
then type 'make World 2>&1 | tee World.LOG' instead )
For some bizarre reason, if make fails on any file in make World, the
compile continues, and problems only manifest themselves in the make install.
This is quite annoying as it may lead to an old 'working' X being overwritten
by a new 'broken' one. For that reason I suggest anyone with an X install
present already, make a backup of /usr/X11R6 at this stage. You could also run
grep error xcompile.std*
to see if there are any early signs of things going wrong.
Once that is all done, type
make install
and then (optionally)
make install.man
I recommend you look at the hint on man pages, since default man pages are
uncompressed. Unfortunately it is not as simple as typing 'gzip -9 *' to
compress the pages as there are symbolic links to consider also.
At this stage, you are required to add the line '/usr/X11R6/lib' to
/etc/ld.so.conf and run ldconfig. This updates the dynamic linker cache to
respect the new X install. You should also add /usr/X11R6/bin to the global
variable PATH in /etc/profile.
Recent versions of XFree86 (such as this release) no longer require seperate
compilation of Mesa or Freetype... which is good news! In fact, as those
libraries are entangled into the standard XFree86 package, it is reccomended
not to upgrade unless the XFree86 people do, as conflicts have and may still
arise! (you have been warned)
Configuring and Starting XFree86
================================
This is the important stage where you set the configuration file for XFree86,
/etc/X11/XF86Config-4. It is quite tricky to get right the first time, and
you are recommended to use the file from your host system. If you do not have
the luxury of a previous config file, you may generate one called
XF86Config.new by typing
XFree86 -configure
and after browsing it, test it by typing
XFree86 -xf86config /root/XF86Config.new
You won't get anything but a flimmering 640 x 480 screen with an
annoying pattern and an X-shaped mouse cursor that you can move (if
the mouse works). Press Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to exit, then move your
config file to its final location
mv XF86Config.new /etc/X11/XF86Config-4
Congratulations! You have just installed X. Now read the XFree86-HOWTO you get
from linuxdoc.org. It will give you an overview of how X is started. Read the
scripts /usr/X11R6/bin/startx and /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit/xinitrc which
determine what happens when you type 'startx'. You will quickly notice that
you may create your own user-custom .xinitrc file.
You may also want to type
man /usr/X11R6/man/man{1,5,7}/*
which will let you read all manpages in a row (just press q to go to the
next manpage). Once you're through you know more about X than 99% of the
people out there ;-)
You'll probably want to do some more configuring in XF86Config-4, you
should read /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XF86Config.eg which is a well-commented
example.
The mouse setup is very important as incorrect settings result in a crashing
(or freezing!) of X.
[I was once at a conference where the only person who gave their talk using
linux had removed their laptop mouse just for that startup...
X crashed instantly.]
It is most iportant that the Protocol and Device are true for your machine.
This setup is for an IMPS/2 mouse. The Device should be /dev/ttyS0 if you
have a COM1 style mouse
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
# uncomment the next line and edit if you want more 'action' from your mouse...
# Option "Resolution" "300"
# uncomment the next 2 lines to enable the wheel on most mice...
# Option "Buttons" "5"
# Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection
Some other things you will surely want to set are
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "keyboard"
Option "XkbModel" "pc102"
Option "XkbLayout" "<your layout>"
Option "AutoRepeat" "250 30"
EndSection
and
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Iiyama"
ModelName "VisionMaster 450"
HorizSync 27-102
VertRefresh 50-160
EndSection
Of course you will need to enter the correct values for your monitor. You
should check the labels on the back of the monitor if you do not know the
exact model, then go to your manufacturer's website and get the Horz/Vert
rates. If you set the right values you don't need to fiddle with modelines
(what a relief!) because XFree86 will choose an appropriate VESA mode with
a high refresh rate. Just specify what mode you want like this:
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 16
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection
This is all it takes to get a nice screen of 1024x768!
After finishing off the X configuration and optional sections, your next
task will be finding a Window Manager you like using. XFree86 comes with a
standard (and not user friendly) Window Manager called 'twm'. I personally
recommend 'blackbox' (http://blackboxwm.sourceforge.net), which is a very
light-weight program and is efficient to use. A lot of people prefer a
totally integrated Desktop environment, such as KDE or Gnome.
It is your choice!
X Font Server (optional, recommended)
=============
The best way to utilise fonts under XFree86 is with a font server, which
handles all the font aliases and matching instead of the actual X server
itself. This server should be started in the initscripts, and it is left
to your own discression as to when to load the font server.
cat > /etc/rc.d/init.d/xfs << "EOF"
#!/bin/bash
source /etc/sysconfig/rc
source $rc_functions
case "$1" in
start)
echo "Starting X font server..."
rm -fr /tmp/.font-unix
loadproc /usr/X11R6/bin/xfs -port -1 -daemon
;;
stop)
echo "Stopping X font server..."
killproc xfs
;;
restart)
echo "Sending reload signal to X font server..."
kill -s SIGHUP `pidof xfs`
evaluate_retval
;;
reload)
$0 stop
sleep 1
$0 start
;;
status)
statusproc xfs
;;
*)
echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart|reload|status}"
exit 1
;;
esac
EOF
chmod 755 /etc/rc.d/init.d/xfs
Now we setup the font server. The default config files /etc/X11/XftConfig
and /etc/X11/fs/config keep all the font configuration. The defaults will work
fine with this install, but I invite you to browse those files. It should
be obvious how to add extra font directories.
To make use of xfs, just add the FontPath line to your X config file something
like...
Section "Files"
...
FontPath "unix/:-1"
...
EndSection
TrueType Fonts (optional)
==============
This is trivial to set up, all you require are some ttf fonts, and the tool
ttmkfdir. Build and install the ttmkfdir (version 2) tool with:
make CXX=$CXX CXXFLAGS="$CXXFLAGS -pedantic \
-I/usr/X11R6/include/freetype2" FREETYPE_BASE=/usr/X11R6 \
FREETYPE_LIB="-L/usr/X11R6/lib -lfreetype"
install ttmkfdir /usr/X11R6/bin/
(NOTE: on building, you may get an error related to exceptions, in which case
retype the above with -fno-exceptions just after -pedantic). You may now
prepare any ttf folder for XFree86 by typing entering it and typing
ttmkfdir -o fonts.scale
mkfontdir
In order to preserve cleanliness, you may wish to lower-case the names of all
your ttf fonts. You may lower-case the names of all .ttf/.TTF files in the
current directory by typing (use with care)
for A in *.TTF *.ttf
do
echo "Renaming $A"
echo -n " to "
NEWNAME=`echo $A | tr [:upper:] [:lower:]`
echo "$NEWNAME"
/bin/mv -i "$A" "$NEWNAME" 2>/dev/null ;
done
Now your fonts should be ready to use. Just make sure your X config has the
freetype module loaded, something like
Section "Module"
...
Load "freetype"
...
EndSection
Glut (optional, recommended)
====
Unfortunately not everything we need comes with X. Almost all programs that
use OpenGL need the glut library as well, so we'll install it. We'll use the
version of glut that comes with Mesa, because it has been adapted to work with
X. Mesa is a huge download though, especially since we're only using the glut
library from it. Once you unpack both the Mesa files, enter the root directory
and build _only_ glut by typing
./configure --prefix=/usr/X11R6
cd src-glut
make
make install
ldconfig
There are some other useful things included with Mesa, such as the demos. If
you want to build them to measure performance, run the following commands to
build them, this is an example of how to build the 'gears' program using glut,
there are many to choose from, building in a similar fashion:
cd ../demos
make -f Makefile.X11 CFLAGS="$CFLAGS -L/usr/X11R6/lib" gears
Accelerated Graphics [DRI] (optional)
==========================
The direct rendering infrastructure, also known as the DRI, is a framework for
allowing direct access to graphics hardware in a safe and efficient manner. It
includes changes to the X server, to several client libraries, and to the
kernel. The first major use for the DRI is to create fast OpenGL implementations.
Bleeding edge users may use the latest CVS version of DRI, details at the end,
but most will be fine using the more stable XFree86. I have found CVS DRI to be
quite buggy. (Although a debug build and gdb hanging around does a world of
help for the developers!) You must have AGP compiled into your kernel, and
there must be support for your AGP chipset as well as the graphics card itself.
This is easy to get running (in theory), just ensure the lines
Section "Module"
...
Load "glx"
Load "dri"
...
EndSection
are present in your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4. You may optionally set
Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection
so that you can control the permissions of DRI to users. The default is root
access only, but we obviously want to use it as users.
One last very important thing about DRI. Stock linux kernels come only prepared
for XFree86-4.1, so we must copy our new kernel module (the DRM) to allow
dynamic loading. If you built DRM, all the modules will be in
ls programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/os-support/linux/drm/kernel
For example, for a radeon card the relevant file is "radeon.o", this you must
copy to your kernel modules directory under kernel/drivers/char/drm/
Substitute your requirements for CARD and KERNELVERSION in this command:
cp programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/os-support/linux/drm/kernel/CARD.o \
/lib/modules/KERNELVERSION/kernel/drivers/char/drm/
depmod -a
If you run 'startx', a quick 'glxinfo' on the command line will show if DRI
is working or not, you can see the acceleration in action by typing 'glxgears'
DRI-CVS (optional, unstable, and not recommended)
=======
This must be downloaded by anonymous CVS.
mkdir DRI-CVS
cd DRI-CVS
export CVSROOT=:pserver:anonymous@cvs.dri.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/dri
cvs login
(hit ENTER when prompted for a password)
cvs -z3 co xc
I recommend you make a local tarball of this directory, making use of
cvs to update it in the future with
cd DRI-CVS
export CVSROOT=:pserver:anonymous@cvs.dri.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/dri
cvs -z3 update -dA xc
The DRI sources are a cut-down version of the latest XFree86, and we build it
in a parallel linked directory, which we make by typing (from the DRI-CVS
directory)
ln -s xc XFree
mkdir build
cd build
lndir -silent -ignorelinks ../XFree
cd xc
Observing the original notes about config/cf/host.def, we also build DRI
with less harsh optimisations and enable debugging symbols.
cat > config/cf/host.def << "EOF"
#define DefaultGcc2i386Opt -g -O2
#define GccWarningOptions -w -pipe
#define BuildServersOnly YES
#define HasZlib YES
#define HasMTRRSupport NO
#define HasMMXSupport NO /* Any i586 or above */
#define HasKatmaiSupport NO /* PIII SSE instuctions */
#define Has3DNowSupport NO /* AMD instructions */
#define XInputDrivers mouse void
/* build all drivers available */
#define XF86CardDrivers mga glint nv tga s3 s3virge sis rendition\
neomagic i740 tdfx savage cirrus vmware\
tseng trident chips apm GlideDriver fbdev\
i128 ati AgpGartDrivers DevelDrivers ark\
cyrix siliconmotion vesa vga\
XF86OSCardDrivers XF86ExtraCardDrivers
#define BuildXF86DRI YES
#define BuildXF86DRM YES
#define DriDrivers gamma tdfx mga i810 i830 r128 radeon sis
/* the following are to enable the dri tree to have its dependencies built */
#define BuildLibrariesForXServers NO
#define BuildLibrariesForConfigTools NO
#define BuildXIE NO
#define BuildPexExt NO
#define XprtServer NO
EOF
make World >dricompile.stdout 2>dricompile.stderr
make install
copy over the kernel module and thats it!
You may check which files have been updated by typing
find /usr/X11R6 -cnewer config/cf/host.def
Voodoo Cards
============
If you have a voodoo card, then tough luck as I am afraid support has been
dropped. I found this out the hard way!
NVIDIA ACCELERATED GRAPHICS (recommended... only for NVidia cards)
===========================
NVidia has never released open sourced code for their 'unified' driver. If you
have such a graphics card, i pitty you for having to put in proprietory code
after you have spent so long building your own LFS. Go to http://www.nvidia.com
and foillow the driver links to get the latest linux driver. You should get
both the NVIDIA_kernel and NVIDIA_GLX tarballs.
Unpack the NVIDIA-kernel file and enter the created directory.
make
This will produce a module called NVdriver. Copy it to the appropriate kernel
modules directory, replace KERNELVERSION with your appropriate value
cp NVdriver /lib/modules/KERNELVERSION/drivers/char/agp/
Add the device in /etc/modules.conf and refresh the modules dependencies.
echo alias char-major-195 NVdriver >> /etc/modules.conf
depmod -a
Unpack the NVIDIA-GLX tarball and enter the created directory.
make
This will install the Nvidia drivers in the correct locations.
You will now edit the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file to use the new drivers. Ensure
the following are present:
Section "Module"
...
Load "dri" # Remove/comment this line
Load "glx" # Add this line if not present
....
EndSection
Section "Device"
Driver "nv" # Remove/comment this line
Driver "nvidia" # Add this line
....
EndSection
If you 'startx' and X locks at startup you'll need to edit os-registry.c and
check the comments near lines that start something like '#if 0'.
If 3D acceleration is just not working, you probably have some Mesa libs lying
around in /usr/lib. Remove the following files /usr/lib/libMesa*
/usr/X11R6/lib/libMesa* and reinstall the GLX module. If you have 3D apps that
require Mesa, you can simply create symlinks to GLX lib (libGL.so.1). You
also need to remove /usr/X11R6/lib/libGL.so.1.2 and symlink it to
/usr/lib/libGL.so