README for XFree86 on NetBSD Rich Murphey, David Dawes, Marc Wandschneider, Mark Weaver, Matthieu Herrb Last modified on: 20 August 1999 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 improve- ments as well as many bug fixes. The release is available as source patches against the X Consortium X11R6.3 code, as well as binary distributions for many architectures. See the Copyright Notice. The sources for XFree86 are available by anonymous ftp from: ftp://ftp.XFree86.org/pub/XFree86/current Binaries for NetBSD 1.4 and later are available from: ftp://ftp.XFree86.org/pub/XFree86/current/binaries/NetBSD-1.4 A list of mirror sites is provided by ftp://ftp.XFree86.org/pub/XFree86/MIR- RORS Other NetBSD versions: These binaries are not compatible with earlier NetBSD versions. If you're still running NetBSD earlier than 1.4, you should think about upgrading to a newer version of NetBSD first. If you don't upgrade, you'll have to build XFree86 from the sources. XFree86 should compile cleanly under earlier versions of NetBSD, although this has not been tested. XFree86 also builds on NetBSD/sparc. See section Building on other architec- tures (section 8.5, page 1) for details. The client side of XFree86 also builds on NetBSD/alpha and many other archi- tecture supported by NetBSD. XFree86 also supports NetBSD on PC98 machines. 2. Bug Reports for This Document Send email to matthieu@laas.fr (Matthieu Herrb) or XFree86@XFree86.org if you have comments or suggestions about this file and we'll revise it. 3. New OS-dependant features in XFree86 3.3.4 o The maximum number of open connections in the server has been raised to 128, o support for the wsmouse mouse protocol included in NetBSD 1.4 has been added. 4. Installing the Binaries Refer to section 5 of the Release Notes for detailed installation instruc- tions. 5. Configuring X for Your Hardware The /etc/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. The easiest way to create this file is to run the XF86Setup utility as root. Refer to QuickStart.doc for details about its use. You'll need info on your hardware: o Your mouse type, baud rate and its /dev entry. o The video card's chipset (e.g. ET4000, S3, etc). o Your monitor's sync frequencies. The recommended way to generate an XF86Config file is to use the XF86Setup utility. The xf86config text utility is still there for the (few) cases where XF86Setup can't be used. Also, there is a sample file installed as /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XF86Config.eg, which can be used as a starting point. For details about the XF86Config file format, refer to the XF86Config(5) man- ual page. Once you've set up a XF86Config file, you can fine tune the video modes with the xvidtune utility. 5.1 About mouse configuration If your serial mouse does not work try using kermit or tip to connect to the mouse serial port and verify that it does indeed generate characters. The NetBSD pms mouse driver handles PS/2 style mice as Busmouse. Specify the protocol as ``busmouse'' in the mouse section of your XF86Config file if you're using a PS/2 mouse. Only standard PS/2 mice are supported by this driver. Newest PS/2 mice that send more than three bytes at a time (especially Intellimouse, or MouseMan+ with a ``3D'' roller) are not supported yet. XFree86 3.3.4 and later also have support for the mouse driver included in the new wscons console driver introduced by NetBSD 1.4. Specify ``wsmouse'' as the protocol and ``/dev/wsmouse0'' as the device in /etc/XF86Config if you're using NetBSD 1.4 with wscons. See README.mouse for general instruction on mouse configuration in XFree86. 5.2 Other input devices XFree86 supports the dynamic loading of drivers for external input devices using the XInput extension. Currently supported devices are: o Joystick (xf86Jstk.so) o Wacom tablets (Wacom IV protocol only, xf86Wacom.so) o SummaSketch tablets (xf86Summa.so) o Elographics touchscreen (xf86Elo.so) To use a specific device, add the line load "module" in the Module section of XF86Config, where module is the name of the .so file corresponding to your device. You also need to set up a XInput section in XF86Config. Refer to the XF86Config(5) man page for detailed configuration instructions. You can then change the device used to drive the X pointer with the xset- pointer(1) command. For joystick support, you'll need to install the joystick device driver in the kernel. It is included in NetBSD 1.2. See joy(4) for details. 5.3 Configuring PEX and XIE extensions The PEX and XIE extensions are supported as external modules. If you want to have access to these extensions, add the following lines to the Module section of XF86Config: load "pex5.so" load "xie.so" 6. Running X 8mb of memory is a recommended minimum for running X. The server, window manager and an xterm take about 4 Mb of memory themselves. On a 4Mb system that would leave nothing left over for other applications like gcc that expect a few meg free. X will work with 4Mb of memory, but in practice com- pilation while running X can take 5 or 10 times as long due to constant pag- ing. 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. 6.1 Starting Xdm, the display manager To start the display manager, log in as root on the console and type: ``xdm -nodaemon''. You can start xdm automatically on bootup by disabling the console getty and adding the following code to /etc/rc.local: if [ -x /usr/X11R6/bin/xdm ]; then echo -n ' xdm'; /usr/X11R6/bin/xdm fi To disable the console getty, change ``on'' to ``off'' in the console entry in /etc/ttys: ttyv0 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" pc off secure Under NetBSD 1.4 with the wscons console driver, you must enable a virtual console for the X server first. To do this follow these steps: o Make sure the device file exists. If not, ``cd /dev ; ./MAKEDEV wscons''. o Next, make sure your kernel wants to do wscons. (see below (section 7.1, page 1)). o Next, make sure ``wscons=YES'' in /etc/rc.conf. o Next, make sure /etc/wscons.conf exists. The relevant bits: #screen 0 - vt100 screen 1 - vt100 screen 2 - vt100 screen 3 - vt100 screen 4 - - screen 5 - vt100 (Thanks to Mason Loring Bliss for this explanation) Note that the binary distributions of XFree86 for NetBSD don't include sup- port for the XDM-AUTHORIZATION-1 protocol. 7. Kernel Support for X To make sure X support is enabled under NetBSD, the following line must be in your config file in /sys/arch/i386/conf: options XSERVER, UCONSOLE 7.1 Console drivers The server supports the standard NetBSD/i386 console drivers: pccons, pcvt and wscons (in pcvt compatibility mode). They are detected at runtime and no configuration of the server itself is required. The pccons driver is the most widely tested and is the console driver con- tained in the NetBSD binary distribution's kernels. The pcvt console driver is bundled with NetBSD. The pcvt X mode is compatible with the pccons driver X mode. It offers several virtual consoles and inter- national keyboard support. In order to use this driver, change the line: device pc0 at isa? port "IO_KBD" irq 1 to device vt0 at isa? port "IO_KBD" irq 1 in your kernel config file, and rebuild and install your kernel. XFree86 will also run with the wscons console driver in NetBSD 1.4. For now, it uses the pcvt compatibility mode, so be sure to have the lines: options WSDISPLAY_COMPAT_PCVT # emulate some ioctls options WSDISPLAY_COMPAT_SYSCONS # emulate some ioctls options WSDISPLAY_COMPAT_USL # VT handling options WSDISPLAY_COMPAT_RAWKBD # can get raw scancodes in your kernel configuration file if you're using wscons. Refer to the wscons(4) and wsmouse(4) manual pages for informations on how to configure wscons into the kernel. 7.2 Aperture Driver By default NetBSD 0.9C and higher include the BSD 4.4 kernel security feature that disable access to the /dev/mem device when in multi-users mode. But XFree86 servers can take advantage (or require) linear access to the display memory. Moset recent accelerated servers require linear memory access, some other can take advantage of it, but do not require it. There are two ways to allow XFree86 to access linear memory: The first way is to disable the kernel security feature by adding `option INSECURE' in the kernel configuration file and build a new kernel. The second way is to install the aperture driver: You can get the aperture driver sources from ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/i386/apNetBSD.shar. How to activate it is highly dependent from your exact operating system ver- sion: o NetBSD 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.2.1: Add the following lines to the end of /etc/rc.local: KERNDIR=/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/kernel if [ -f ${KERNDIR}/ap.o ]; then modload -o ${KERNDIR}/ap -e ap -p ${KERNDIR}/apinstall ${KERNDIR}/ap.o fi o NetBSD 1.2D and later Add the following line to /etc/lkm.conf: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/kernel/ap.o - ap /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/kernel/apinstall - o NetBSD 1.2G, 1.3 and later The lkm.conf format changed in 1.2G. Add the following line to /etc/lkm.conf: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/kernel/ap.o - ap /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/kernel/apinstall - -AFTERMOUNT Reboot your system. XFree86 will auto-detect the aperture driver if avail- able. Warning: if you boot another kernel than /netbsd or /bsd, loadable kernel modules can crash your system. Always boot in single user mode when you want to run another kernel. Caveat: the aperture driver only allows one access at a time (so that the system is in the same security state once X is launched). This means that if you run multiple servers on multiples VT, only the first one will have linear memory access. Use 'option INSE- CURE' if you need more that one X server at a time. 7.3 MIT-SHM NetBSD 1.0 and later supports System V shared memory. If XFree86 detects this support in your kernel, it will support the MIT-SHM extension. To add support for system V shared memory to your kernel add the lines: # System V-like IPC options SYSVMSG options SYSVSEM options SYSVSHM to your kernel config file. 8. Rebuilding the XFree86 Distribution The server link kit allow you to rebuild just the X server with a minimum amount of disk space. Just unpack it, make the appropriate changes to the xf86site.def, type ``./mkmf'' and ``make'' to link the server. See /usr/X11R6/lib/Server/README for more info. See INSTALL for instructions on unbundling and building the source distribu- tion. You should configure the distribution by editing xc/config/cf/host.def before compiling. To compile the sources, invoke ``make World'' in the xc directory. 8.1 Console drivers XFree86 has a configuration option to select the console drivers to use in xf86site.def: o if you're using pccons put: #define XFree86ConsoleDefines -DPCCONS_SUPPORT o if you're using pcvt put: #define XFree86ConsoleDefines -DPCVT_SUPPORT o if you're using syscons put: #define XFree86ConsoleDefines -DSYSCONS_SUPPORT o if you're running codrv put: #define XFree86ConsoleDefines -DCODRV_SUPPORT If you don't define XFree86ConsoleDefines in xf86site.def the pccons and pcvt drivers will be supported by default. Syscons and codrv are not bundled with NetBSD. They are available by anony- mous FTP from a number of sites. They are not supported by the XFree86 binary distribution anymore. 8.2 pcvt_ioctl.h file: XFree86's default configuration includes support for the PCVT console driver. Unfortunately, NetBSD versions before 19980413 don't install the pcvt_ioctl.h file in /usr/include/machine. If you want to build XFree86 with PCVT support, execute the following command as root before starting make World: cp /usr/src/sys/arch/i386/isa/pcvt/pcvt_ioctl.h /usr/include/machine If you don't have kernel sources, you can grab this file from ftp.netbsd.org or one of its mirrors. If you're not running PCVT, you can remove -DPCVT_SUP- PORT from XFree86ConsoleDefines in xf86site.def too. 8.3 console.h and ioctl_pc.h files: If you want to build a server supporting codrv and you don't already have the corresponding header file ioctl_pc.h installed in /usr/include/machine, then install the copy that is supplied in xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/etc. If you run NetBSD-current you probably want to install it in /usr/src/sys/arch/i386/include too, so that it get reinstalled each time you run make includes. If you have installed the codrv console driver, this file should be taken from your installed version of the driver. The console.h file for syscons isn't distributed with XFree86 anymore. You should get it from the syscons distribution. 8.4 Support for shared libs under NetBSD 1.0 and later By default XFree86 builds for NetBSD with shared libraries support. If you're building on 0.9 or don't want shared libraries add the following line to host.def: #define BuildBsdSharedLibs NO 8.5 Building on other architectures XFree86 also compiles on NetBSD/sparc. The Sun server patches from Dennis Ferguson and Matthew Green have been integrated in xc/pro- grams/Xserver/hw/sun. Small modifications to xf86site.def are needed: o Set all variables defining the servers to build to NO. (The variables controlling the Sun servers to build Xsun24Server, XsunServer and Xsun- MonoServer are defined at the end of NetBSD.cf.) o Set ServerToInstall to the sun server of your choice. (Xsun or Xsun- Mono). o Look at other applicable options in the INSTALL document. Problems with this port should be reported to the port-sparc@NetBSD.Org mail- ing list or directly to me matthieu@laas.fr rather than to the xfree86 mail- ing list. Note that the NetBSD project has now its own source tree, based on the XFree86 source tree, with some local modifications. You may want to start with this tree to rebuild from sources. The NetBSD xsrc source tree is available at: ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-current/xsrc/ 9. Building New X Clients The easiest way to build a new client (X application) is to use xmkmf if an Imakefile is included in the sources. Type ``xmkmf -a'' to create the Make- files, check the configuration if necessary and type ``make''. Whenever you install additional man pages you should update whatis.db by running ``make- whatis /usr/X11R6/man''. To avoid the ``Virtual memory exhausted'' message from cc while compiling, increase the data and stack size limits (in csh type ``limit datasize 32M'' and ``limit stacksize 16M''). Note: Starting with XFree86 2.1 and NetBSD 0.9A, the symbol __386BSD__ no longer gets defined either by the compiler or via the X config files for *BSD 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 in the source that requires it. Note that the symbol CSRG_BASED is defined for *BSD systems in XFree86 3.1.1 and later. This should be used to protect the inclusion of . 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. Another note: If you get the message: ld.so: undefined symbol _XtCvtStringToFont at run-time, you've stumbled on a semantic weakness of the NetBSD dynamic linker. Applications that use libXmu also need libXt. If the client uses a standard Imakefile, this dependency will probably by included in the Makefile automagically -- you'll not see the problem. Otherwise, just add ``-lXt'' to your library list in the Imakefile or Makefile and relink. 10. Thanks Many thanks to: o Pace Willison for providing the initial port to 386BSD. o Amancio Hasty for fixing cursor restoration, mouse bugs and many others. o Christoph Robitschko for fixing com.c and thus select(). o Nate Williams for the patchkit support for X. o Rod Grimes and Jack Velte of Walnut Creek Cdrom for use of their machines in preparing the FreeBSD binary release. Generated from XFree86: xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/doc/sgml/NetBSD.sgml,v 3.45.2.14 1999/12/11 15:28:30 hohndel Exp $ $XConsortium: NetBSD.sgml /main/26 1996/10/28 05:43:20 kaleb $