X386
Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: Release 5
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NAME
X386 - X Window System server for UNIX System V/386
SYNOPSIS
X386
[:displaynumber] [ option ] ...
DESCRIPTION
X386
is the generic sample server for the X Window System, Version 11 Release 5
on i386 hardware. It is normally started by the xdm(1) daemon or by
a script that runs the program xinit(1) such as startx.
New extensions supported by X386 in X11R5 include X3D-PEX
(PHIGS/+ Extension to X) and XTestExtension1 (Input Synthesis Extension).
CONFIGURATIONS
X386
operates under ISC, SCO, ESIX & AT&T UNIX System V/3.2 and UHC, ESIX, Dell
& AT&T UNIX System V/4.0. The server supports the following popular
SuperVGA boards in 256 color mode:
SuperVGA Cards Max Res ChipSet
-------------------------------- -------- -------
Compuadd Hi-Rez card w/1meg 1024x768 ET4000
Diamond SpeedStar 1024x768 ET4000
EIZO MD-10 800x600 ET3000
GENOA 5300/5400 800x600 ET3000
GENOA 6400 800x600 GVGA
Optima Mega/1024 1024x768 ET4000
Orchid ProDesigner 800x600 ET3000
Orchid ProDesigner II/1024 1024x768 ET4000
Paradise VGA Professional 640x480 PVGA1A
Paradise VGA 1024 640x480 WD90C00
Sigma Legend 1024x768 ET4000
STB PowerGraph w/1meg 1024x768 ET4000
Swan SVGA equipped with VCO chip 1024x768 ET4000
TRICOM Mega/1024 1024x768 ET4000
The core X11R5 source tree as supplied in the public release was compiled and
tested under ISC 2.2.1 (UNIX System V/3.2), Dell and AT&T UNIX System V/4.0.
NETWORK CONNECTIONS
X386 supports connections made using the following reliable
byte-streams:
- Unix Domain
-
X386 uses /tmp/.X11-unix/Xn as the filename for the socket,
where n is the display number, (SVR4).
- TCP/IP
-
X386 listens on port htons(6000+n), where n is the display
number, (SVR3 and SVR4).
OPTIONS
See the command line switches described in the Xserver(1) manual page.
X386 does not accept any additional switches.
KEYBOARD
Multiple key presses recognized directly by X386 are:
- Ctrl+Alt+Backspace
-
Immediately kills the server -- no questions asked. (Can be disabled by
specifying "dontzap" in the configuration file.)
- Ctrl+Alt+Keypad-Plus
-
Change video mode to next one specified in the configuration file,
(increasing video resolution order).
- Ctrl+Alt+Keypad-Minus
-
Change video mode to previous one specified in the configuration file,
(decreasing video resolution order).
SETUP
X386
uses the configuration file /usr/X386/Xconfig for its initial setup.
This file is composed of the following sections:
General Server Parameters
Keyboard Configuration
Mouse Configuration
Video Mode Setup
Table of Known Video Modes
The General Server Parameters section lets you adjust some generic server
parameter which seldom change for a given site. (The fontpath
parameter can also be set from the command line, see Xserver(1).):
- fontpath
-
sets the search path for fonts. This path is a comma separated list of
directories which the sample server searches for font databases.
- rgbpath
-
sets the name of RGB color database.
The Keyboard Configuration section starts with a keyword describing
which kind of driver should be used: keyboard (the normal device) or
xqueue (the eventque driver). Note that the latter one exists only for
compatibility with older releases and shouldn't be used. Following this
keyword the following options can be specified:
- autorepeat delay rate
-
changes the behavior of the autorepeat of the keyboard.
- dontzap
-
disallows the use of the Ctrl+Alt+Backspace sequence. This sequence
allows you to terminate the server.
- servernum
-
forces the server to handle the numlock key internally. The server sends
virtual key-events so applications can use the numberpad.
- xleds led ...
-
makes led available for clients instead of using the traditional function
(Scroll Lock, Caps Lock & Num Lock)
Similar to above, the Mouse Configuration section starts with a special
keyword, but here we must select the type of mouse (i.e. it's protocol) that
is connected to the computer. (Using the xqueue driver this section is
obsolete since mouse I/O is handled by the xqueue-driver.) The mouse types
available are:
busmouse
logitech
microsoft
mmseries
mouseman
mousesystems
(One should specify busmouse for the Logitech bus mouse.)
The following options can be specified after this keyword:
- baudrate rate
-
sets the baudrate of the serial mouse to rate. For mice that allow
dynamic speed adjustments (like logitech) the baudrate is changed in the mouse.
Otherwise the rate is simply set on the computer's side to allow mice with
non-standard rates.
- emulate3buttons
-
enables the emulation of the third mouse button for mice which only have
two physical buttons. The third button is emulated by pressing both
buttons simultaneously.
- samplerate rate
-
sets the number of motion/button-events the mouse sends per second. This is
currently only supported for logitech mice.
The Graphics Driver Setup section starts with the keyword vga256.
After this keyword a variety of options may be specified:
- staticgray,grayscale,staticcolor,pseudocolor,truecolor,directcolor
-
sets the visual class for the root window of the screen.
- chipset name
-
specifies a chipset so the correct driver can be used. Possible chipsets are:
et3000
et4000
gvga
pvga
- clocks clock ...
-
specifies the dotclocks that are on your graphics board.
- displaysize xdim ydim
-
sets the display size (internal) to xdim x ydim (measured in mm).
- modes mode ...
-
selects the display modes for this screen. The first one in the list will
be the default display mode for startup. Internally this list is converted
into a circular list. With Ctrl+Alt+Keypad-Plus and
Ctrl+Alt+Keypad-Minus the current display mode may be changed, and
the next (upward/downward) entry in the list will be used.
- vendor vendorstring
-
allows the server to select a special behavior for *special* hardware.
Currently the following strings are recognized:
legend
- videoram mem
-
specifies the amount of videoram that is installed on the graphics board. This
is measured in kBytes.
- viewport x0 y0
-
sets the upper left corner of the initial display. If the virtual
resolution is larger than what is physically displayed, then the initial
display will be centered if viewport is not specified.
- virtual xdim ydim
-
sets the virtual resolution. For example one might use a display with 800x600,
but a virtual resolution of 1152x900. If the mouse touches the borders of the
display the image scrolls accordingly. This is called panning.
Note that X386 has some internal capabilities to determine what hardware
it is running on. Thus normally the keywords chipset, clocks,
vendor and videoram don't have to be specified. But there
may be occasions when this autodetection mechanism fails, (for example, too
high of load on the machine when you start the server). For cases like this,
one should first run X386 on an unloaded machine, look at the
results of the autodetection (that are printed out during server startup)
and then explicitly specify these parameters in the configuration file.
The last section is the Table of Video Modes which starts with the
keyword modedb. A list of possible mode-records follows this keyword.
For every mode string in the previously specified modes line, the server
scans the list of mode-records looking for a matching modename. When a
match occurs, then the dotclock value is compared to those found on
the graphics board. If the dotclock value matches, then the rest
of the values in the mode-record will be used for that display mode. If
there is more than one matching mode-record (for a given modename and
dotclock), then the last one matched will be used.
A mode-record consists of seven parts:
- modename
-
is the string that identifies this mode. If one is not specified, then the
modename string of the last valid mode-record is used.
- dotclock
-
is the dotclock this mode uses. This is the basic timer for all video signals.
- hdisp, hsyncstart, hsyncend, htotal
-
is the horizontal timing
- vdisp, vsyncstart, vsyncend, vtotal
-
is the vertical timing
- interlace
-
sets interlace display mode.
- +hsync, -hsync
-
selects polarity of HSYNC signal
- +vsync, -vsync
-
selects polarity of VSYNC signal
For details on how to build your own video modes please refer to the tutorial
written by Chin Fang.
A sample config file might look like this:
RGBPath "/usr/X386/lib/X11/rgb"
FontPath "/usr/X386/lib/X11/fonts/misc/,:zok:7000"
Keyboard
AutoRepeat 500 5
Xleds 1 2 3
ServerNumLock
DontZap
Logitech "/dev/tty00"
BaudRate 9600
SampleRate 150
Emulate3Buttons
vga256
Chipset "et4000"
Vendor "legend"
Clocks 25 28 36 62
Virtual 1152 900
ViewPort 0 0
Modes "1024x768" "640x480"
ModeDB
"640x480" 25 640 672 768 800 480 490 492 525
28 640 672 768 800 480 490 492 525
"1024x768" 62 1024 1092 1220 1344 768 786 791 810
Note that a new feature of X11R5 is the ability of the X server to
request fonts from a font server. One specifies a font
server by placing a ":<hostname>:<tcp_port_number>" into the fontpath.
In the above example, the fontpath "/usr/X386/lib/X11/fonts/misc/,:zok:7000"
tells X386 to first try to locate the font in the local directory
/usr/X386/lib/X11/fonts/misc. If that fails, then request the font from
the font server running on machine zok listening for connections on
TCP port number 7000.
FILES
- /usr/X386/bin/X386
-
The X server
- /usr/X386/lib/X11/Xconfig
-
Server configuration file
- /usr/X386/lib/X11/etc
-
Additional X386 support files
- /usr/X386/bin/*
-
Client binaries
- /usr/X386/include/*
-
Header files
- /usr/X386/lib/*
-
Libraries
- /usr/X386/lib/X11/fonts/*
-
Fonts
- /usr/X386/lib/X11/rgb.{dir,pag,txt}
-
Color names to RGB mapping
- /usr/X386/lib/X11/XErrorDB
-
Client error message database
- /usr/X386//lib/X11/app-defaults/*
-
Client resource specifications
- /usr/X386/man/man?/*
-
Manual pages
- /etc/X0.hosts
-
Initial access control list
SEE ALSO
X(1), Xserver(1), xdm(1), xinit(1)
BUGS
Starting clients while on another virtual screen may destroy the contents
of the original screen or may even kill the server. The workaround is to use
xrefresh(1) to refresh the screen.
AUTHORS
- Thomas Roell, roell@informatik.tu-muenchen.de
-
TU-Muenchen: Server and SVR4 stuff
- Mark W. Snitily, mark@zok.sgcs.com
-
SGCS: SVR3 support, X Consortium Sponsor
... and many more people out there on the net who helped with ideas and
bug-fixes.
X386 X11R5 source and binaries are available from SGCS.
Send email to mark@zok.sgcs.com or ...!mips!zok!mark
for details.
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- CONFIGURATIONS
-
- NETWORK CONNECTIONS
-
- OPTIONS
-
- KEYBOARD
-
- SETUP
-
- FILES
-
- SEE ALSO
-
- BUGS
-
- AUTHORS
-
This document was created by
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Time: 07:01:22 GMT, May 19, 2025