Installation guide

Chapter 6. The X Window System 101
• VertRefresh — Lists the vertical refresh range frequencies supported by the monitor, in
kHz. These values are used as a guide by the XFree86 server so that it will know whether to
use a particular Modeline entry’s values with this monitor.
Screen
Binds together a particular Device and Monitor that can be utilized as a pair and contain certain
settings. You must have at least one Screen section in your configuration file. The following
options are common:
• DefaultDepth — Tells the Screen section the default color depth to try in bits. 8 is the
default, 16 provides thousands of colors, and 32 displays millions of colors.
• Device — Signifies the name of the Device section to use with this Screen section.
• Identifier — Identifies the Screen section so that it can be referred to by a ServerLayout
section and be utilized.
• Monitor — Tells the name of the Monitor section to be used with this Screen section.
You may also have a Display subsection within the Screen section which tells the XFree86
server the color depth (Depth) and resolution (Mode) to try first when using this particular mon-
itor and video card.
ServerFlags
Contains miscellaneous global XFree86 server settings. These settings may be overridden by
options placed in the ServerLayout section. Among the most useful settings:
• DontZap — Prevents the use of the [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[Backspace] key combination to immediately
terminate the XFree86 server.
• DontZoom — Prevents cycling through configured video resolutions using the [Ctrl]-[Alt]-
[Keypad-Plus] and [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[Keypad-Minus] key combinations.
ServerLayout
Binds together a Screen section with the necessary InputDevice sections and various options
to create a unified collection of preferences used by the XFree86 server as it starts. If you have
more than one ServerLayout section, and the one to use is not specified on the command line
when bringing up the XFree86 server, the first ServerLayout section in the configuration file
is used.
The following options are used in a ServerLayout section:
• Identifier — A unique name used to describe this ServerLayout section.
• InputDevice — The names of any InputDevice sections to be used with the XFree86
server. Most users will only have two lines here, Keyboard0 and Mouse0, the first keyboard
and mouse configured for the system. The options CoreKeyboard and CorePointer refer to
the fact that these are the preferred keyboard and mouse, respectively, to use with the XFree86
server.
• Screen — The name of the Screen section to use. The number to the left of the name of the
Screen section refers to the particular screen number to use in a multi-head configuration.
For standard single-head video cards, this value is 0. The numbers to the right give the X and
Y absolute coordinates for the upper-left corner of the screen, by default 0 0.
Below is an example of a typical screen entry:
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0