On Tue, 29 Oct 2002, Thomas Dodd wrote:
>Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 09:07:54 -0600
>From: Thomas Dodd <ted@cypress.com>
>To: psyche-list@redhat.com
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
>List-Id: Discussion of Red Hat Linux 8.0 (Psyche) <psyche-list.redhat.com>
>Subject: Re: Resolution Help
>
>
>
>James McArthur wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Have you tried xf86config, and manually checking to make sure that you
>
>xf86config is not included in the Red Hat XF86 packages.
Incorrect.
>See the beta (limo-list) archives. redhat-config-xfree86 is
>the _ONLY_ tool included. vi/emacs/<editor of choice> still
>work though.
Also incorrect.
There are several tools for configuring XFree86 that exist inside
XFree86, and externally from XFree86, some of which are rather
obsolete, and some of which are no longer shipped for one reason
or another in Red Hat Linux. Since a lot of these configuration
utilities have similar names, people very very often get them
mixed up, or spell them incorrectly.
xf86config - ancient original commandline based question and
answer config tool that has been part of XFree86 for
ages. This is entirely text commandline based and
sucks majorly. It is included in RHL 8.0 still more
or less because it got missed by my axe. Most
likely this will die painfully next release. The
cavemen still using this can feel free to complain
to /dev/null when this happens. <grin>
XF86Setup - First GUI based config tool included with XFree86
itself. It is TCL/TK based, 16 color vga,
horrendously ugly, non-intuitive UI, unmaintained,
and obsolete. It is included still in XFree86
source code, but it is disabled and most likely
contains many bugs. Hasn't been in RHL for quite a
while.
xf86cfg - New GUI/TUI config tool that first appeared in
XFree86 4.0. It supports a GUI mode implemented
in using Xt/Xaw/whatever (shudder), and also has a
text mode which is ncurses based (which most people
are unaware of also). While the GUI is an
improvement over the other older caveman tools
above, it is only marginally better IMHO. This was
in RHL up until 7.3, but was removed from RHL 8.0
intentionally, and will not be returning. I made
this a spec file conditional build time thing to
satiate any complainers. <grin>
Xconfigurator - The text mode Red Hat XFree86 config tool which
has been the default X config tool for ages,
but is now obsolete and removed from the distro
in 8.0. Xconfigurator originally was
basically a newt based front end glued on top of
xf86config which was kludged and abused more and
more over time into the unmaintainable mess that
it is today. A new config tool was needed which
is more modern, user friendly, etc. and
continuing to kludge things into Xconfigurator
simply wasn't scalable or maintainable, so it was
dropped for 8.0, and redhat-config-xfree86 was
born in its place. It won't return.
X -configure - The X server itself can generate a config file
in a pinch which can be used as is in many cases,
or can be tweaked by hand if necessary.
redhat-config-xfree86 - The current supported XFree86 config tool
in Red Hat Linux 8.0 and future releases.
It is python+gtk based, and is the only
officially supported X config tool.
This tool will be enhanced over time to try and provide the most
useful configuration tasks that end users really need to have.
The goal of the tool is to be end-user friendly, and to minimize
the amount of configuration required. As many things that can be
sensibly autoconfigured generally will be. Complex config items
will likely not be supported in the tool, or will only be
available with some -advanced option or somesuch - if anything.
A lot of the things that have traditionally _needed_ to be
configured before, are starting to gain autodetection support in
the X server. As more and more things go towards autodetection,
etc. - the need to explicitly configure them in the config file
becomes less and less of a need. The tools become simplified,
the users don't run away in fear, and life is good.
Be sure to report bugs that occur with this tool, as well as
feature enhancement requests into Red Hat bugzilla.
Hope this helps.
--
Mike A. Harris ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris
OS Systems Engineer
XFree86 maintainer
Red Hat Inc.
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