[techtalk] apt-got xfree 4.0.1

[Aaron Malone]

On Wed, Nov 08, 2000 at 05:43:59PM +0100, Sunnanvind Briling wrote:
> Well, I heard that Xfree 4.0.1 was coming in to debian-unstable, and
> that it was foolish to upgrade.
> I am that fool. :)
> Now, X doesn't start, what are the steps to get it running?
 
Well, it'd be nice to have some more information -- what exactly were the
steps you took in upgrading, what does X say when it refuses to start,
etc.
     
But anyway, here's my experience upgrading woody from X 3.3.6 to 4.0.1.  I
got out of X, and did an 'apt-get install xserver-xfree86'.
xserver-xfree86 is the new all-purpose X server for 4.0.1, and is not
installed by default if you just did a dist-upgrade.  I suspect this may
be at the root of your problem.  I don't recall if the configuation tool
('dexter') was run automatically or if I did that myself, but I went
through that to configure X, then tweaked the modes by hand since dexter
doesn't support 1280x1024.  Once that was done, I checked the rest of my X
packages and upgraded any that didn't get done when I installed the new
xserver package.  Note that if you're not using xfs already, you should
either install it or remove this line in /etc/X11/XF86Config-4:

FontPath        "unix/:7100"                    # local font server

Having this line without a font server running caused me some problems,
even though it shouldn't according to the comments around that line.

Start X, and it should work.  You'll need to get the 'fttools' package if
you want to set up xfs or X to use TrueType fonts -- you need the
'mkttfdir' command from that package.

I've encountered a couple of issues, but nothing particularly bad, and the
speed increase (on my ATI RageIIc) is WONDERFUL.

--
Aaron Malone (aaron at semo.net)
System Administrator                 I can bend minds with my spoon.
Poplar Bluff Internet, Inc.
http://www.semo.net