XSUN

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: Release 5
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NAME

Xsun, XsunMono - Sun server for X Version 11

SYNOPSIS

Xsun [ option ] ...

DESCRIPTION

Xsun is the server for Version 11 of the X window system on Sun hardware. It will normally be started by the xdm(1) daemon or by a script that runs the program xinit(1).

CONFIGURATIONS

Xsun supports both color and monochrome screens. XsunMono is configured to support only monochrome screens, for low-end systems with limited memory.

If a specific framebuffer device file isn't specified on the command line with the -dev switch, the server will look for the following framebuffers (the constype(1) program may be used to tell which type of display is attached as the console):

/dev/bwtwo0: This monochrome display is available on Sun-3/50, Sun-3/75, Sun-3/140, Sun-3/260, and Sun-3/280 platforms with both the 1152x900 and 1600x1280 screen sizes.
/dev/cgtwo0: This color display is available on 3/160C, 3/260C, and 4/260C platforms. It may also be used as a monochrome-only display with the -mono switch.
/dev/cgthree0: This color display is available on both the Sun386i and SPARCstation 1 platforms.
/dev/cgfour0: This display is available on Sun-3/60, Sun-3/110, and Sun-4/110 platforms. It provides both color and monochrome screens (numbered 0 and 1, respectively by default) on the same monitor by toggling between them whenever the mouse goes off the left or right edges of the screen.
/dev/cgsix0: This color display is available on SPARCstation 1 platforms with the GX graphics accelerator (which is used by the server to make some operations faster).

Finally, if no specific framebuffers are found, the generic framebuffer interface /dev/fb is used.

Note that the server does not support the GP, GP+, or GP2 graphics coprocessors. On these platforms, the cgtwo framebuffer should be used instead (either by creating it or specifying -dev /dev/cgtwo0 on the server command line).

OPTIONS

In addition to the normal server options described in the Xserver(1) manual page, Xsun accepts the following command line switches:

-ar1 milliseconds: This option specifies amount of time in milliseconds before which a pressed key should begin to autorepeat.
-ar2 milliseconds: This option specifies the internal in milliseconds between autorepeats of pressed keys.
-mono: When used with the cgtwo, this option indicates that the server should emulate a monochrome framebuffer instead of the normal color framebuffer. When used with the cgfour, this option indicates that the monochrome screen should be numbered 0 and the color screen numbered 1 (instead of the other way around).
-zaphod: This option disables switching between screens by sliding the mouse off the left or right edges. With this disabled, a window manager function must be used to switch between screens.
-debug: This option indicates that the server is being run from a debugger, and that it should not put its standard input, output and error files into non-blocking mode.
-dev filename: This option specifies the name of the framebuffer device file to be used instead of the built-in defaults described above.

USE WITH SUNWINDOWS OR NeWS

The server can be run from outside suntools, in which case it configures for all available displays (unless overridden by -dev options). Otherwise, it can be run ``on top of'' either suntools or NeWS. In this case, it takes over the entire screen it was invoked from.

If you have multiple displays, you can run suntools on both, use adjacentscreens to move the mouse between them, and then run Xsun on top of one of the desktops. Adjacentscreens will still be in effect, so you can move between window systems by sliding the mouse from one screen to another.

ENVIRONMENT

XDEVICE: If present, and if no explicit -dev options are given, specifies the (colon separated) list of display devices to use.
WINDOW_PARENT: If present, specifies the /dev/win file of the suntools desktop.

BUGS

The auto-configuration depends on there being appropriate special files in the /dev directory for the framebuffers which are to be used. Extra entries can confuse the server. For example, the X/160C in fact has the hardware for a monochrome bwtwo0 on the CPU board. So if /dev has a special file for /dev/bwtwo0, the server will use it, even though there is no monitor attached to the monochrome framebuffer. The server will appear to start, but not to paint a cursor, because the cursor is on the monochrome frame buffer. The solution is to remove the /dev entries for any device you don't have a monitor for.

There is a bug in pre-FCS operating systems for the Sun-4 which causes the server to crash driving a cgtwo.

There is a race condition that sometimes happens when running ``on top of'' NeWS. The symptom is that parts of NeWS show through, and that the keyboard is in a non-useful state. There is no simple work-around.

Colon separated devices names do not work.

AUTHORS

U. C. Berkeley: Adam de Boor.
Sun Microsystems: David Rosenthal, Stuart Marks, Robin Schaufler, Mike Schwartz, Frances Ho, Geoff Lee, and Mark Opperman.
MIT Laboratory for Computer Science: Bob Scheifler, Keith Packard

This document was created by man2html, using the manual pages.
Time: 07:01:54 GMT, May 19, 2025