When you configure X yourself, you can choose the video driver, monitor settings,
mouse configuration, and other basic features needed to get your display working
properly.
Window manager??”Dozens of window managers are available to use with X on a Linux
system. Window managers add borders and buttons to otherwise bare X windows. They
add colors and graphics to backgrounds, menus, and windows. Window managers also
define how you can use keyboard and mouse combinations to operate your desktop.
You need to configure X directly only if your desktop isn??™t working (the desktop may appear
scrambled or may just plain crash). You may choose to configure X if you want to tune it to give
you higher resolutions or more colors than you get by default.
Still to come in this chapter: examining tools for tuning X and, in particular, working with the
xorg.conf file. You??™ll also explore a few popular window managers that you might want to try
out. Slackware Linux is used to illustrate how to choose and configure a window manager because
Slackware users tend to like simple, direct ways of working with the desktop (when they need a
desktop at all).
Configuring X
Before 2004, most Linux distributions used the X server from the XFree86 project (www.xfree86
.
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