On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 10:25:58PM -0800, Tom Williams wrote:
>Ok, when I read the man pages on XFree86 (man XFree86), the "-configure"
>option is described:
>
>-configure
>When this option is specified, the XFree86 server loads all video driver
>modules, probes for available hardware, and writes out an initial
>XF86Config(5x) file based on what was detected. This option currently has
>some problems on some platforms, but in most cases it is a good way to
>bootstrap the configuration process. This option is only available when
>the server is run as root (i.e, with real-uid 0).
>
>When I enter the XFree86 command with an invalid argument, the "-configure"
>option is not mentioned at all but an "-autoconfig" option is listed:
>
>-autoconfig automatic configuration, even when a config file
>exits
>
>Shouldn't the XFree86 help information when an invalid command line
>argument is specified match (or come close to matching) the man page?
The '-configure' option is listed if you are root when you do that. The
root-only options are not listed when you are not root.
>Is this worth filing a bug report on?
>
>Now, are "-autoconfig" and "-configure" the same option?
No. -autoconfig runs XFree86 without reading a config file, and
this option is activated by default if you simply run 'XFree86'
when no config file exists. -configure generates a config file as
described in the man page entry you quote. The man page description
for -autoconfig is:
-autoconfig
Use automatic XFree86 server configuration, even if a configu-
ration file is available. By default automatic configuration
is only used when a configuration file cannot be found.
"automatic configuration" is described further elsewhere in the same
man page:
Starting with version 4.4, XFree86 has support for generating a usable
configuration at run-time when no XF86Config(5) configuration file is
provided. The initial version of this automatic configuration support
is targeted at the most popular hardware and software platforms sup-
ported by XFree86. Some details about how this works can be found in
the CONFIGURATION section below and in the getconfig(1) manual page.
...
Starting with version 4.4, XFree86 has a mechanism for automatically
generating a built-in configuration at run-time when no XF86Config file
is present. The current version of this automatic configuration mecha-
nism works in three ways.
The first is via enhancements that have made many components of the
XF86Config file optional. This means that information that can be
probed or reasonably deduced doesn't need to be specified explicitly,
greatly reducing the amount of built-in configuration information that
needs to be generated at run-time.
The second is to use an external utility called getconfig(1), when
available, to use meta-configuration information to generate a suitable
configuration for the primary video device. The meta-configuration
information can be updated to allow an existing installation to get the
best out of new hardware or to work around bugs that are found post-
release.
The third is to have "safe" fallbacks for most configuration informa-
tion. This maximises the likelihood that the XFree86 server will start
up in some usable configuration even when information about the spe-
cific hardware is not available.
David
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