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Chapter 31.
453
The X Window System
While the heart of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the kernel, for many users, the face of the operating
system is the graphical environment provided by the
X Window System
, also called
X
.
Other windowing environments have existed in the UNIX world, including some that predate the
release of the X Window System in June 1984. Nonetheless, X has been the default graphical
environment for most UNIX-like operating systems, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, for many
years.
The graphical environment for Red Hat Enterprise Linux is supplied by the
X.Org Foundation
, an
open source organization created to manage development and strategy for the X Window System
and related technologies. X.Org is a large-scale, rapidly developing project with hundreds of
developers around the world. It features a wide degree of support for a variety of hardware devices
and architectures, and can run on a variety of different operating systems and platforms. This release
for Red Hat Enterprise Linux specifically includes the X11R7.1 release of the X Window System.
The X Window System uses a client-server architecture. The
X server
(the
Xorg
binary) listens
for connections from
X client
applications via a network or local loopback interface. The server
communicates with the hardware, such as the video card, monitor, keyboard, and mouse. X client
applications exist in the user-space, creating a
graphical user interface
(
GUI
) for the user and passing
user requests to the X server.
31.1. The X11R7.1 Release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 now uses the X11R7.1 release as the base X Window System, which
includes several video driver, EXA, and platform support enhancements over the previous release,
among others. In addition, this release also includes several automatic configuration features for the X
server.
X11R7.1 is the first release to take specific advantage of the modularization of the X Window System.
This modularization, which splits X into logically distinct modules, makes it easier for open source
developers to contribute code to the system.
Important
Red Hat Enterprise Linux no longer provides the XFree86
™
server packages. Before
upgrading a system to the latest version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, be sure that the
system's video card is compatible with the X11R7.1 release by checking the Red Hat
Hardware Compatibility List located online at
http://hardware.redhat.com/
.
In the X11R7.1 release, all libraries, headers, and binaries now live under
/usr/
instead of
/usr/
X11R6
. The
/etc/X11/
directory contains configuration files for X client and server applications. This
includes configuration files for the X server itself, the
xfs
font server, the X display managers, and
many other base components.
The configuration file for the newer Fontconfig-based font architecture is still
/etc/fonts/
fonts.conf
. For more on configuring and adding fonts, refer to
Section 31.4, “Fonts”
.
Because the X server performs advanced tasks on a wide array of hardware, it requires detailed
information about the hardware it works on. The X server automatically detects some of this
information; other details must be configured.