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3. Installing XFree86

It's quite likely that you obtained XFree86 as part of a Linux distribution, in which case downloading the software separately is not necessary. Or you may be able to get RPM binary packages built for your machine, in which case you can just install those using rpm(1). In either case you can skip this the rest of this section.

The Linux binary distribution of XFree86 can be found on a number of FTP sites. On the XFree86 site it's under ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/current/binaries/.

Before doing anything else, download and run the `preinst.sh' shell script first. This may tell you about prerequisites you'll need to have in place before contibuing your installation.

If you are downloading XFree86 directly, this table lists the files in the XFree86-3.3 distribution.

One of the following servers is required:

X8514.tgz

Server for 8514-based boards.

XAGX.tgz

Server for AGX-based boards.

XI128.tgz

Server for the Number Nine Imagine 128.

XMach32.tgz

Server for Mach32-based boards.

XMach64.tgz

Server for Mach64-based boards.

XMach8.tgz

Server for Mach8-based boards.

XMono.tgz

Server for monochrome video modes.

XP9K.tgz

Server for P9000-based boards.

XS3.tgz

Server for S3-based boards.

XS3V.tgz

Server for the S3 ViRGE and ViRGE/VX (considered beta)

XSVGA.tgz

Server for Super VGA-based boards.

XW32.tgz

Server for ET4000/W32-based boards.

If you don't know which one to take, take the VGA16 server, XVG16.tgz. You want to download this one anyway, because you'll need it to run the auto-configuration utility in the next step.

All of the following files are required:

preinst.sh

Pre-installation script

postinst.sh

Post-installation script

Xbin.tgz

The rest of the X11R6 binaries.

Xcfg.tgz

Config files for xdm, xinit and fs.

Xdoc.tgz

Documentation.

Xman.tgz

Manual pages.

Xfnts.tgz

75dpi, misc and PEX fonts

Xlib.tgz

Shared X libraries and support files.

Xset.tgz

XF86Setup utility.

XVG16.tgz

Server for VGA/EGA-based boards.

The following files are optional:

Xf100.tgz

100dpi fonts

Xfcyr.tgz

Cyrillic fonts

Xfnon.tgz

Other fonts (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hebrew)

Xfscl.tgz

Scalable fonts (Speedo and Type1)

Xfsrv.tgz

Font server and config files

Xprog.tgz

X header files, config files and compile-time libs

Xlkit.tgz

X server LinkKit

Xlk98.tgz

PC98 X server LinkKit

Xnest.tgz

Nested X server

Xprt.tgz

X print server

Xvfb.tgz

Virtual framebuffer X server

Xps.tgz

PostScript version of the documentation

Xhtml.tgz

HTML version of the documentation

The XFree86 directory should contain release notes for the current version in RELNOTES. Consult those for installation details

All that is required to install XFree86 is to obtain the above files, create the directory /usr/X11R6 (as root), and unpack the files from /usr/X11R6 with a command such as: 

gzip -dc Xbin.tgz | tar xfB -
Remember that these tar files are packed relative to /usr/X11R6, so it's important to unpack the files there.

You need to make sure that /usr/X11R6/bin is on your path. This can be done by editing your system default /etc/profile or /etc/csh.login (based on the shell that you, or other users on your system, use). Or you can simply add the directory to your personal path by modifying .bashrc or .cshrc, based on your shell.

You also need to make sure that /usr/X11R6/lib can be located by ld.so, the runtime linker. To do this, add the line 

/usr/X11R6/lib
to the file /etc/ld.so.conf, and run /sbin/ldconfig, as root.

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