README for XFree86 on OpenBSD Matthieu Herrb Last modified on: 20 August 1999 1. What and Where is XFree86? XFree86 is a port of X11R6.3 that supports several versions of Intel-based Unix. It is derived from X386 1.2, which was the X server distributed with X11R5. This release consists of many new features and performance improve- ments as well as many bug fixes. The release is available as source patches against the X Consortium X11R6.3 code, as well as binary distributions for many architectures. See the Copyright Notice. The sources for XFree86 are available by anonymous ftp from: ftp://ftp.XFree86.org/pub/XFree86/current Binaries for OpenBSD 2.5 and later are available from: ftp://ftp.XFree86.org/pub/XFree86/current/binaries/OpenBSD A list of mirror sites is provided by ftp://ftp.XFree86.org/pub/XFree86/MIR- RORS XFree86 also builds on other OpenBSD architectures. See section Building on other architectures (section 9.2, page 1) for details. 2. Bug Reports for This Document Send email to matthieu@laas.fr (Matthieu Herrb) or XFree86@XFree86.org if you have comments or suggestions about this file and we'll revise it. 3. New OS-dependent features in this release None. See the Release Notes for non-OS dependent new features in XFree86 3.3.5. 4. New OS-dependent features in XFree86 3.3.4 o The maximum number of open connections in the server has been raised to 128, o the resize utility was fixed. 5. Installing the Binaries Refer to section 5 of the Release Notes for detailed installation instruc- tions. 6. Configuring X for Your Hardware The /etc/XF86Config file tells the X server what kind of monitor, video card and mouse you have. You must create it to tell the server what specific hardware you have. The easiest way to create this file is to run the XF86Setup utility as root. Refer to QuickStart.doc for details about its use. You'll need info on your hardware: o Your mouse type, baud rate and its /dev entry. o The video card's chipset (e.g. ET4000, S3, etc). o Your monitor's sync frequencies. The recommended way to generate an XF86Config file is to use the XF86Setup utility. The xf86config text utility is still there for the (few) cases where XF86Setup can't be used. Also, there is a sample file installed as /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XF86Config.eg, which can be used as a starting point. For details about the XF86Config file format, refer to the XF86Config(5) man- ual page. Once you've set up a XF86Config file, you can fine tune the video modes with the xvidtune utility. 6.1 About mouse configuration If your serial mouse does not work try using kermit or tip to connect to the mouse serial port and verify that it does indeed generate characters. The OpenBSD pms driver provides both ``raw'' and ``cooked'' (translated) modes. ``raw'' mode does not do protocol translation, so XFree86 would use the PS/2 protocol for talking to the device in that mode. ``Cooked'' mode is the old BusMouse translation. The driver runs in ``raw'' mode when using the /dev/psm0 device name. On OpenBSD 2.2, only standard PS/2 mice are supported by this driver. On OpenBSD 2.3 and later include there is support for recent PS/2 mice that send more than three bytes at a time (especially intellimouse, or mouseman+ with a "3D" roller). See README.mouse for general instruction on mouse configuration in XFree86. 6.2 Other input devices XFree86 supports the dynamic loading of drivers for external input devices using the XInput extension. Currently supported devices are: o Joystick (xf86Jstk.so) o Wacom tablets (Wacom IV protocol only, xf86Wacom.so) o SummaSketch tablets (xf86Summa.so) o Elographics touchscreen (xf86Elo.so) To use a specific device, add the line load "module" in the Module section of XF86Config, where module is the name of the .so file corresponding to your device. You also need to set up a XInput section in XF86Config. Refer to the XF86Config(5) man page for detailed configuration instructions. You can then change the device used to drive the X pointer with the xset- pointer(1) command. For joystick support, you'll need to enable the joystick device driver in the kernel. See joy(4) for details. 6.3 Configuring PEX and XIE extensions The PEX and XIE extensions are supported as external modules. If you want to have access to these extensions, add the following lines to the Module section of XF86Config: load "pex5.so" load "xie.so" 7. Running X 8mb of memory is a recommended minimum for running X. The server, window manager and an xterm take about 4 Mb of memory themselves. On a 4Mb system that would leave nothing left over for other applications like gcc that expect a few meg free. X will work with 4Mb of memory, but in practice com- pilation while running X can take 5 or 10 times as long due to constant pag- ing. 7.1 Starting xdm, the display manager To start the display manager, log in as root on the console and type: ``xdm -nodaemon''. You can start xdm automatically on bootup un-commenting the following code in /etc/rc.local: if [ -x /usr/X11R6/bin/xdm ]; then echo -n ' xdm'; /usr/X11R6/bin/xdm fi On the default OpenBSD 2.2 installation, you will need to create the virtual console device for the X server: cd /dev ./MAKEDEV ttyC5 Note that the binary distributions of XFree86 for OpenBSD don't include sup- port for the XDM-AUTHORIZATION-1 protocol. 7.2 Running X without the display manager The easiest way for new users to start X windows is to type: ``startx >& startx.log''. Error messages are lost unless you redirect them because the server takes over the screen. To get out of X windows, type: ``exit'' in the console xterm. You can cus- tomize your X by creating .xinitrc, .xserverrc, and .twmrc files in your home directory as described in the xinit and startx man pages. 8. Kernel Support for X To make sure X support is enabled under OpenBSD, the following line must be in your config file in /sys/arch/i386/conf: options XSERVER 8.1 Console drivers The server supports the two standard OpenBSD/i386 console drivers: pccons and pcvt. They are detected at runtime and no configuration of the server itself is required. The pcvt console driver is the default in OpenBSD. It offers several virtual consoles and international keyboard support. 8.2 Aperture Driver By default OpenBSD includes the BSD 4.4 kernel security feature that disable access to the /dev/mem device when in multi-users mode. But XFree86 servers can take advantage (or require) linear access to the display memory. The P9000, Mach64 and AGX servers require linear memory access, other accel- erated servers can take advantage of it, but do not require it. Some drivers in the SVGA server require linear memory access too, notably the Matrox driver. The preferred way to allow XFree86 to access linear memory is to use the aperture driver Ths step is highly dependent from your exact operating system version: o OpenBSD 2.0 Use the aperture driver from /usr/lkm: add the following lines to the end of /etc/rc.local: KERNDIR=/usr/lkm if [ -f ${KERNDIR}/ap.o ]; then modload -o ${KERNDIR}/ap -e ap -p \ ${KERNDIR}/apinstall ${KERNDIR}/ap.o fi o OpenBSD 2.1, 2.2 Uncomment the lines loading the aperture driver from /etc/rc.securelevel o OpenBSD 2.3 The aperture driver is part of the kernel. Add 'option APERTURE' to your kernel configuration file, build and install the new kernel and run ./MAKEDEV std in /dev. Edit /etc/sysctl.conf to set the variable machdep.allowaperture to 1. o OpenBSD 2.4 and later OpenBSD now requires the aperture driver to be enabled for all X servers, because the aperture driver also controls access to the I/O ports of the video boards. After doing that, reboot your system. XFree86 will auto-detect the aperture driver if available. Warning: if you boot another kernel than /bsd, loadable kernel modules can crash your system. Always boot in single user mode when you want to run another kernel. Caveat: the aperture driver only allows one access at a time (so that the system is in the same security state once X is launched). This means that if you run multiple servers on multiples VT, only the first one will have linear memory access. Use 'option INSE- CURE' if you need more that one X server at a time. Another (less recommended) way to enable linear memory access is to disable the kernel security feature by adding ``option INSECURE'' in your kernel con- figuration file and build a new kernel. In OpenBSD 2.2 and later, you will also need to comment out the line initializing securelevel to 1 in /etc/rc.securelevel. 8.3 MIT-SHM OpenBSD supports System V shared memory. If XFree86 detects this support in your kernel, it will support the MIT-SHM extension. To add support for system V shared memory to your kernel add the lines: # System V-like IPC options SYSVMSG options SYSVSEM options SYSVSHM to your kernel config file. 9. Rebuilding the XFree86 Distribution The server link kit allow you to rebuild just the X server with a minimum amount of disk space. Just unpack it, make the appropriate changes to the xf86site.def, type ``./mkmf'' and ``make'' to link the server. See /usr/X11R6/lib/Server/README for more info. See INSTALL for instructions on unbundling and building the source distribu- tion. You should configure the distribution by editing xc/config/cf/host.def before compiling. To compile the sources, invoke ``make World'' in the xc directory. 9.1 Console drivers XFree86 has a configuration option to select the console drivers to use in xf86site.def: o if you're using pccons only put: #define XFree86ConsoleDefines -DPCCONS_SUPPORT o if you're using pcvt only put: #define XFree86ConsoleDefines -DPCVT_SUPPORT If you don't define XFree86ConsoleDefines in xf86site.def the pccons and pcvt drivers will be supported. 9.2 Building on other architectures XFree86 also compiles on other OpenBSD architectures. The XFree86 servers can also been built on OpenBSD/mips. The S3 server has been tested on an Acer Mips system with a S3/928 board. Contact Per Fogel- strom (pefo@OpenBSD.org) for details. The Xsun server patches from Dennis Ferguson and Matthew Green for NetBSD have been integrated in xc/programs/Xserver/hw/sun. The Xsun server can be built on the sparc and the sun3. The client side of XFree86 also builds on the alpha, pmax, amiga, mac68k and mvme68k architectures. Problems with this port should be reported directly to the OpenBSD mailing lists rather than to the xfree86 mailing list. Note that OpenBSD project has now its own source tree, based on the XFree86 source tree, with some local modifications. You may want to start with this tree to rebuild from sources. The OpenBSD X11 source tree is available by anoncvs from all OpenBSD anoncvs servers. See http://www.openbsd.org/anon- cvs.html for details on anoncvs. 10. Building New X Clients The easiest way to build a new client (X application) is to use xmkmf if an Imakefile is included in the sources. Type ``xmkmf -a'' to create the Make- files, check the configuration if necessary and type ``make''. Whenever you install additional man pages you should update whatis.db by running ``make- whatis /usr/X11R6/man''. Generated from XFree86: xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/doc/sgml/OpenBSD.sgml,v 1.1.2.11 1999/08/23 08:49:49 hohndel Exp $ $XConsortium$