• HOWTO-xorg

As of August 30, 2008, Xorg modular has been merged into the test grimoire. The following guide should only be used by those not using the test grimoire or using a much older version of the grimoire. See http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/sm-announce/2008-August/000250.html for details.

You can add the test grimoire by using the scribe command: scribe add test. See the Scribe page for more information about scribe.

This document is work in progress. Please check on IRC or sm-dicuss for any problems you may encounter.

Index

• Introduction
• Preparing your system
• Using new repository
• Using old repository
• Installation

Introduction

"Why modular?" You may be wondering, why in the world did one nice, easy xorg-x11 package turn into almost 300 separate ones? And you'd certainly be justified in asking this. The reasoning behind the split and changing build system is at least threefold:

• X is too difficult to get into for new developers, so thus the move to autotools, a system more people are comfortable with if not happy with.
• Along with that move, splitting out the source is possible with autotools, and this also makes it more developer-friendly.
• Things have been unnecessarily tied together in the past, and this has made getting bug-fixes out often impossible. If they were able to get out fixes, it required rebuilding all of Xorg. For example, a bug in the ATI driver would either need to wait 6 months until the next release, or you'd have to rebuild your fonts to get it, for absolutely no reason.

Preparing your system

Before you can install Xorg Modular you need to disable alternative providers of X11-SERVER and X11-LIB:

sorcery exile xorg xfree86 xfree86-devel xfree86-4.3 xdirectfb

This reduces the chances of selecting the wrong spell later and messing your system up.

Using new repository

Currently the preferred method for getting the Xorg Modular repository is to use git. This is until the xorg-modular grimoire tarballs are created.

If you have test or devel sorcery, you can do this simply with:

scribe add xorg-modular from git_http://scry.dtdm.net/codex/xorg-modular.git:xorg-modular:origin/devel-xorg-modular

This also means you can easily update it with scribe update.

Otherwise:

1. Make sure you have git installed:

   • cast git

2. Get the grimoire repository:

   • cd ~
     git clone git://scm.sourcemage.org/smgl/grimoire.git

     This will most likely take a long time to complete, but when it does

     you should have a git repository in ~/grimoire.

3. Checkout the devel-xorg-modular branch:

   • cd grimoire
     git checkout --track -b mydevel origin/devel-xorg-modular

     If you get this error:

     git checkout: updating paths is incompatible with switching branches/forcing
     Did you intend to checkout `origin/devel-xorg-modular` which can not be resolved as commit?

     Try running this before running the checkout again:

     git fetch && git rebase origin

     It's also possible to use cogito to fetch and branch in one step:

     cast cogito
     cg-clone git://scm.sourcemage.org/smgl/grimoire.git#devel-xorg-modular

4. Add the grimoire to Sorcery:

   • This involves editing a system file, so be sure to make a backup.

     cd /etc/sorcery/local
     cp grimoire grimoire.orig
     $EDITOR grimoire

     Editing this file is fairly straight forward, add a new line at the begginning of the file:

     GRIMOIRE_DIR[0]=/home/user/grimoire

     Check that the numbers in [*] are in sequence, then save the file. Now you need to tell scribe to update the list of spells:

     scribe reindex

Using old repository

While this method still works, and is easier to setup, it won't get you the latest sources for Xorg Modular.

1. Add the repository:

   • scribe add xorg-modular from http://codex.sourcemage.org/testing/xorg-modular.tar.bz2

Installation

1. Installing xorg-server:

   • This is fairly straight forward, but there's one thing you must

     remember to do: configure libxaw with libxp support enabled.

     cast xorg-server

2. Drivers and extras:
   • Obviously the server is next to useless on it's own, you need to install some drivers to get it working:

     cast xf86-input-mouse
     cast xf86-input-keyboard
     cast xf86-video-*
     cast xkeyboard-config

     To get a list of what video drivers are available run:

     gaze search -name xf86-video

     Then, to confirm you have the correct one:

     gaze what xf86-video-*

3. Configuration:

   • If you have not yet created your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, you can to do so now. You can either write it by hand (use man xorg.conf as a guide) or you can use one of three tools:

     • X -configure: Automatic xorg.conf generation.

     • xorgcfg: A graphical config tool

     • xorgconfig: A fallback textmode tool.

And that's it, you should now have a working, be it basic, X environment. To test it type startx, and remember you can always force your way out if something goes wrong by pressing CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE.