4 Running XFree86

Contents of this section

4.1 System requirements

A minimum of 8MB of memory is required to run X. If you want to run real-world applications you should think of upgrading to 16MB. If you plan to develop software under X take 32MB into consideration.

4.2 System tuning

Tunable parameters

To run XFree86 reasonably you must adjust a few system parameters in /usr/include/param.h:

  Tunable                                               Old     New
  USR_NFDS      number of open files per process         20      64
  NPROC         number of tasks                          50     150
  NFILES        number of open files in system          100     250
  NINODES       number of incore inodes                 (same value as NFILES)
  QUANTUM       clock ticks until preemption             64      20
  CACHEBLKS     number of cache memory blocks           202      >= 4096

The new values are those suggested by the LynxOS documentation for their X Window package.

Increase number of ptys

You should also increase the number of ptys to be able run a couple more xterms. You may replace /sys/lynx.os/pty.cfg with /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/etc/pty.cfg.

Kernel build

If you plan to use PS/2 or Bus mice refer to the following section before rebuilding the kernel, if not, you should rebuild the kernel now:

     # cd /sys/lynx.os
     # make install
     # reboot -N
  

4.3 Bus mouse drivers

Starting with LynxOS AT 2.4.4 LynxOS includes a PS/2 mouse driver. Currently this driver is not supported by XFree86. /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/etc/BM-Lynx.shar contains a port of the Linux drivers for those devices. To install the drivers unpack the shar archive

    # cd /
    # bash /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/etc/BM-Lynx.shar
  

and follow the notes in /BMOUSE.Readme for further installation and configuration notes.

The XFree86 PS/2 mouse driver works also with MetroLink X 2.3.3.1 as shipped with LynxOS AT 2.4.0 unless you have the LynxOS patch 000055-00 installed.

4.4 ATC console driver and VT switching

The XFree86 servers will only run with the default LynxOS console driver, sorry for those of you who use the alternative vdt console driver. Currently there is no support for virtual terminal switching once the server has started.

You will need a free console which the X server will use for keyboard input. You must disable login on at least one of the four virtual terminals in /etc/ttys, e.g. /dev/atc3:

change
       /dev/atc3:1:default:vt100at:/bin/login
  
to
       /dev/atc3:0:default:vt100at:/bin/login
                 ^
  

4.5 X Server debug diagnostics output and other VT peculiarities

The XFree86 X servers will produce a lot of diagnostics output on stderr during startup. This output will be lost after the server reached a certain point in its console initialization process. You should redirect stdout and stderr if you want to analyze the diagnostics produced by the server.

When the X server is running output made to other consoles will be lost. After server shutdown the screen contents of other consoles may be inconsistent with what one would expect (i.e. random).

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