








                         README for XFree86 on FreeBSD

                           Rich Murphey, David Dawes

                                8 November 1998



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 improvements
as well as many bug fixes.

For further details about this release, including installation instructions,
please refer to the Release Notes.

See the Copyright Notice.

Binaries for XFree86 on FreeBSD 2.2.x and 3.0 are available from:

ftp://ftp.XFree86.org/pub/XFree86/current/binaries/

Send email to Rich-Murphey@Rice.edu or XFree86@XFree86.org if you have comments
or suggestions about this file and we'll revise it.


2.  FreeBSD 3.0 and ELF

The FreeBSD-3.0 binary distribution is ELF only.  The Xbin.tgz tarball contains
a.out libraries for compatibility purposes.


3.  Installing The Display Manager (xdm)

The display manager makes your PC look like an X terminal.  That is, it pre-
sents you with a login screen that runs under X.

The easiest way to automatically start the display manager on boot is to add a
line in /etc/ttys to start it on one of the unoccupied virtual terminals:

      ttyv4    "/usr/X11R6/bin/xdm -nodaemon" xterm    on secure

You should also make sure that /usr/X11R6/bin/X is a symbolic link to the
Xserver that matches your video card or edit the file Xservers in
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xdm to specify the pathname of the X server.

The change to /etc/ttys won't take effect until you either reboot or ``kill
-HUP 1'' to force initd to reread /etc/ttys.  You can also test the display
manager manually by loging in as root on the console and typing ``xdm -nodae-
mon''.


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 README for XFree86 on FreeBSD                                                2



4.  Configuring X for Your Hardware

The 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.

It is strongly recommended that you read through the QuickStart guide, and use
either the `XF86Setup' utility (which requires the VGA16 server to be
installed), or the `xf86config' utility to generate an XF86Config file.

When you run the `XF86Setup' utility, do NOT touch the mouse until you are fin-
ished with mouse set up.  Otherwise, the VGA16 server and the mouse device
driver may get confused and you may experience mouse and/or keyboard input
problems.

If you are running ``moused'' (see the man page for moused(8)) in FreeBSD ver-
sions 2.2.1 or later, you MUST specify SysMouse as the mouse protocol type and
/dev/sysmouse as the mouse device name, regardless of the brand and model of
your mouse.

If you are NOT running ``moused'', you need to know the interface type of your
mouse, /dev entry and the protocol type to use.

The interface type can be determined by looking at the connector of the mouse.
The serial mouse has a D-Sub female 9- or 25-pin connector.  The bus mouse has
either a D-Sub male 9-pin connector or a round DIN 9-pin connector.  The PS/2
mouse is equipped with a small, round DIN 6-pin connector.  Some mice come with
adapters with which the connector can be converted to another.  If you are to
use such an adapter, remember the connector at the very end of the
mouse/adapter pair is what matters.

The next thing to decide is a /dev entry for the given interface.  For the bus
and PS/2 mice, there is little choice: the bus mouse always use /dev/mse0, and
the PS/2 mouse is always at /dev/psm0.  There may be more than one serial port
to which the serial mouse can be attached.  Many people often assign the first,
built-in serial port /dev/cuaa0 to the mouse.

If you are not sure which serial device your mouse is plugged into, the easiest
way to find out the device is to use ``cat'' or ``kermit'' to look at the out-
put of the mouse.  Connect to it and just make sure that it generates output
when the mouse is moved or clicked:

      % cat < /dev/tty00

If you can't find the right mouse device then use ``dmesg|grep sio'' to get a
list of serial devices that were detected upon booting:

      % dmesg|grep sio
      sio0 at 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4 on isa

Then double check the /dev entries corresponding to these devices.  Use the
script /dev/MAKEDEV to create entries if they don't already exist:










 README for XFree86 on FreeBSD                                                3



      % cd /dev
      % sh MAKEDEV tty00

You may want to create a symbolic link /dev/mouse pointing to the real port to
which the mouse is connected, so that you can easily distinguish which is your
``mouse'' port later.

The next step is to guess the appropriate protocol type for the mouse.  In
FreeBSD 2.2.6 or later, the X server may be able to automatically determine the
appropriate protocol type, unless your mouse is of a relatively old model.  Use
the ``Auto'' protocol in these versions.

In other versions of FreeBSD or if the ``Auto'' protocol doesn't work in 2.2.6,
you have to guess a protocol type and try.

There is rule of thumb:

  1.  The bus mice always use the ``BusMouse'' protocol regardless of the brand
      of the mouse.

  2.  The ``PS/2'' protocol should always be specified for the PS/2 mouse
      regardless of the brand of the mouse.

           NOTE: There are quite a few PS/2 mouse protocols listed in the
           man page for XF86Config.  But, ``PS/2'' is the only PS/2 mouse
           protocol type useful in XF86Config for FreeBSD.  The other PS/2
           mouse protocol types are not supported in FreeBSD.  FreeBSD
           version 2.2.6 and later directly support these protocol types
           in the PS/2 mouse driver psm and it is not necessary to tell
           the X server which PS/2 mouse protocol type is to be used;
           ``Auto'' should work, otherwise use ``PS/2''.

  3.  The ``Logitech'' protocol is for old mouse models from Logitech.  Modern
      Logitech mice use either the ``MouseMan'' or ``Microsoft'' protocol.

  4.  Most 2-button serial mice support the ``Microsoft'' protocol.

  5.  3-button serial mice may work with the ``MouseSystems'' protocol. If it
      doesn't, it may work with the ``Microsoft'' protocol although the third
      (middle) button won't function.  3-button serial mice may also work with
      the ``MouseMan'' protocol under which the third button may function as
      expected.

  6.  3-button serial mice may have a small switch to choose between ``MS'' and
      ``PC'', or ``2'' and ``3''.  ``MS'' or ``2'' usually mean the
      ``Microsoft'' protocol.  ``PC'' or ``3'' will choose the ``MouseSystems''
      protocol.

  7.  If the serial mouse has a roller or a wheel, it may be compatible with
      the ``IntelliMouse'' protocol.












 README for XFree86 on FreeBSD                                                4



5.  Running X

8mb of memory is a recommended minimum for running X.  The server, window man-
ager, display manager and an xterm take about 8Mb of virtual memory themselves.
Even if their resident set size is smaller, on a 8Mb system that leaves very
space for other applications such as gcc that expect a few meg free.  The R6 X
servers may work with 4Mb of memory, but in practice compilation while running
X can take 5 or 10 times as long due to constant paging.

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.


6.  Rebuilding Kernels for X

The GENERIC FreeBSD kernels support XFree86 without any modifications required.
You do not need to make any changes to the GENERIC kernel or any kernel config-
uration which is a superset.

For a general description of BSD kernel configuration get smm.02.config.ps.Z
<URL:ftp://gatekeeper.dec.com/pub/BSD/manuals/smm.02.config.ps.Z>.  It is a
ready-to-print postscript copy of the kernel configuration chapter from the
system maintainers manual.

If you do decide to reduce your kernel configuration file, do not remove the
line below (in /sys/arch/i386/conf).  It is required for X support:

      options       UCONSOLE       #X Console support

The generic FreeBSD kernels are configured by default with the syscons driver.
To configure your kernel similarly it should have a line like this in
/usr/src/sys/i386/conf/GENERIC:

      device        sc0  at isa? port "IO_KBD" tty irq 1 vector scintr

The number of virtual consoles can be set using the MAXCONS option:

      options       "MAXCONS=4"         #4 virtual consoles

Otherwise, the default without a line like this is 16.  You must have more VTs
than gettys as described in the end of section 3, and 4 is a reasonable mini-
mum.

The server supports two console drivers: syscons and pcvt.  The syscons driver
is the default in FreeBSD 1.1.5 and higher.  They are detected at runtime and
no configuration of the server itself is required.

If you intend to use pcvt as the console driver, be sure to include the follow-
ing option in your kernel configuration file.








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      options       XSERVER             #Xserver

The number of virtual consoles in pcvt can be set using the following option:

      options       "PCVT_NSCREENS=10"  #10 virtual consoles

The bus mouse driver and the PS/2 mouse driver may not be included, or may be
included but disabled in your kernel.  If you intend to use these mice, verify
the following lines in the kernel configuration file:

      device        mse0 at isa? port 0x23c tty irq 5 vector mseintr
      device        psm0 at isa? port "IO_KBD" conflicts tty irq 12 vector psmintr

The mse0 device is for the bus mouse and the psm device is for the PS/2 mouse.
Your bus mouse interface card may allow you to change IRQ and the port address.
Please refer to the manual of the bus mouse and the manual page for mse(4) for
details.  There is no provision to change IRQ and the port address of the PS/2
mouse.

The XFree86 servers include support for the MIT-SHM extension.  The GENERIC
kernel does not support this, so if you want to make use of this, you will need
a kernel configured with SYSV shared memory support.  To do this, add the fol-
lowing line to your kernel config file:

      options       SYSVSHM             # System V shared memory
      options       SYSVSEM             # System V semaphores
      options       SYSVMSG             # System V message queues

If you are using a SoundBlaster 16 on IRQ 2 (9), then you need a patch for
sb16_dsp.c.  Otherwise a kernel configured with the SoundBlaster driver will
claim interrupt 9 doesn't exist and X server will lock up.

S3 cards and serial port COM 4 cannot be installed together on a system because
the I/O port addresses overlap.


7.  Building X Clients

The easiest way to build a new client (X application) is to use xmkmf if an
Imakefile is included with it.  Type ``xmkmf -a'' to create the Makefiles, then
type ``make''.  Whenever you install additional man pages you should update
whatis.db by running ``makewhatis /usr/X11R6/man''.

Note: Starting with XFree86 2.1 and FreeBSD 1.1, the symbol __386BSD__ no
longer gets defined either by the compiler or via the X config files for
FreeBSD systems.  When porting clients to BSD systems, make use of the symbol
BSD for code which is truly BSD-specific.  The value of the symbol can be used
to distinguish different BSD releases.  For example, code specific to the Net-2
and later releases can use:

     #if (BSD >= 199103)

To ensure that this symbol is correctly defined, include <sys/param.h> in the
source that requires it.  Note that the symbol CSRG_BASED is defined for *BSD








 README for XFree86 on FreeBSD                                                6



systems in XFree86 3.1.1 and later.  This should be used to protect the inclu-
sion of <sys/param.h>.

For code that really is specific to a particular i386 BSD port, use __FreeBSD__
for FreeBSD, __NetBSD__ for NetBSD, __OpenBSD__ for OpenBSD, __386BSD__ for
386BSD, and __bsdi__ for BSD/386.


8.  Thanks

Many thanks to:

   o Pace Willison  for providing initial *BSD support.

   o Amancio Hasty for 386BSD kernel and S3 chipset support.

   o David Greenman, Nate Williams, Jordan Hubbard for FreeBSD kernel support.

   o Rod Grimes, Jordan Hubbard and Jack Velte for the use of Walnut Creek
     Cdrom's hardware.

   o Orest Zborowski, Simon Cooper and Dirk Hohndel for ideas from the Linux
     distribution.

     Generated from XFree86: xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/doc/sgml/FreeBSD.sgml,v 3.25.2.5 1998/11/07 13:37:46 dawes Exp $





     $XConsortium: FreeBSD.sgml /main/12 1996/10/28 05:43:08 kaleb $































 README for XFree86 on FreeBSD                                                7





































































                                   CONTENTS



1. What and Where is XFree86? ............................................... 1

2. FreeBSD 3.0 and ELF ...................................................... 1

3. Installing The Display Manager (xdm) ..................................... 1

4. Configuring X for Your Hardware .......................................... 2

5. Running X ................................................................ 4

6. Rebuilding Kernels for X ................................................. 4

7. Building X Clients ....................................................... 5

8. Thanks ................................................................... 6





































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