X Window System

The X Window System or X11 provides a window manager running on top of a X server.

SliTaz 1.0 and 2.0 by default use the lightweight X server called Xvesa from the Xorg project (www.x.org).

Slitaz 3.0 by default uses the Xorg server, there is however a Xvesa flavor.

The X server can be started with the Slim login manager or directly from a Linux console with the command startx, but for this you must first disable the Login Manager. To reconfigure your X session you can use tazx as root or as the current user if you start X from the command line.

Tazx is the configuration tool to manage your X window sessions on a SliTaz box. Simply select a resolution and press OK. You can also select a (Xorg) session by selecting a video driver best suited to your hardware. After you first run 'startx', the configuration is saved in the executable files ~/.xsession and ~/.xinitrc. These files are then used to start a X session with either 'startx' or via the Slim login manager and can be easily altered with a text editor. Tazx can also be used to change your default window manager. Example:

 tazx jwm

Slim is a lightweight session manager that is very easy to configure and is customizable using system themes.

The configuration file is /etc/slim.conf.

It defines the default user, default theme, and the X window system parameters. Slim offers special user commands like console to help manage the session.

More details and themes can be found on https://github.com/iwamatsu/slim

In version 1.3.5 available window managers via the F1 key are defined by use of the sessions statement in /etc/slim.conf.

In version 1.3.6 the

sessiondir /usr/share/xsessions

statement in /etc/slim.conf makes slim look for available window managers in the specified directory. To choose one, the F1 key must be pressed.

Users who use just one window manager should omit the sessiondir statement, so that .xinitrc will start the window manager specified by the WINDOW_MANAGER variable in $HOME/.config/slitaz/applications.conf.

In live mode Slim can be disabled with the boot option screen=text.

On an installed system the package can be removed or slim can be deleted from the RUN_DAEMONS variable in /etc/rcS.conf.

Slim offers a way to pre-load a user name, by default this is the user name with user number 1000 (usually tux). This can be changed by editing the Slim configuration file /etc/slim.conf and modifying the line default_user or just leave the line blank to avoid pre-loading a user name.

Example:

default_user        nottux

Xorg is the default server on SliTaz and designed to work out of the box on most systems. It should detect and configure most devices such as keyboards, mice, displays, etc. Once installed, running Tazx allows you to reconfigure/reinstall the xorg-server package and select the correct driver for your card. Example:

First stop the Xorg server using alt-ctrl-backspace, you should now be in console mode. Then run tazx as root:

 # tazx 

Then select Xorg and select your video driver, this reconfigures Xorg. Then restart the slim login manager:

 # /etc/init.d/slim start 

You can also do this by searching for and installing a video driver and reconfiguring Xorg manually (after stopping the server):

 # tazpkg search xorg-xf86-video
 # tazpkg get-install xorg-xf86-video-nv
 # Xorg -configure 

Then copy the newly generated file to /etc/X11:

 # cp /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf 

And restart the login manager:

 # /etc/init.d/slim start 

Xorg uses the configuration files found in the xorg.conf.d directory which are automatically setup when you first boot and can be easily edited with your favorite text editor. The files are configured separately into sections such as modules to be loaded, default screen, mouse, keyboard, etc. This document provides a few examples:

10-ServerLayout.conf:

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier     "X.org Configured"
	Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
EndSection

30-Module.conf:

Section "Module"
	Load  "dbe"
	Load  "dri2"
	Load  "extmod"
	Load  "dri"
	Load  "record"
	Load  "glx"
EndSection

Note that a xorg.conf file can also be found in /etc/X11 as another way to configure Xorg. This file is read before all files in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d and will NOT be erased by any updates.

You can use Xvesa as X terminal, if you have a machine on the network that accepts Xdmcp connections. To enable this, you can start the server with the option -query followed by the machine name or IP address. Example of machine 192.168.0.2 on a local network:

 $ Xvesa -ac -shadow -screen 1024x768x24 -query 192.168.0.2 

The use of a graphical remote server can be of great use, although response times of applications depend greatly on Internet speed and the remote machine's power. This technique works very well within a local area network (LAN) and allows you to control applications installed on the remote machine directly from the screen of the local machine from which you work. Note that the distant remote machine may have multiple accounts in use simultaneously and/or direct access.

The management of Fonts (fonts) is powered by the package fontconfig. This package provides tools to add, list and manipulate fonts. The fonts can be installed in user space or at the system level, this means that each user can use his/her own fonts or the system administrator (root) can install fonts available to all users of the system. If you use USB media associated with the SliTaz LiveCD, you can easily install fonts and retain them for the next time you use the cdrom.

At the system level fonts are installed in the directory: /usr/share/fonts, core SliTaz provides TTF Vera fonts, they take up little space and are rendered correctly. At the root of user space ~/, fonts are found in the hidden directory: .fonts. To create a home directory to accommodate new fonts, you can use the graphical window manager emelFM2, Clex or the command line:

 $ mkdir ~/.fonts 

Once you have installed the fonts you need to run the fc-cache tool to generate configuration files, this ensures that your fonts are available for use in applications:

 $ fc-cache