<!DOCTYPE linuxdoc PUBLIC "-//XFree86//DTD linuxdoc//EN" [
<!ENTITY % defs SYSTEM "defs.ent"> %defs;
]>

<article>

<title>Installation Details for XFree86&reg; &relvers;
<author>The XFree86 Project, Inc
<date>12 August 2007

<ident>
$XFree86: xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/doc/sgml/Install.sgml,v 1.23 2007/09/15 23:43:41 tsi Exp $
</ident>

<abstract>

How to install XFree86.

</abstract>

<toc>

<sect>Introduction
<p>
This document contains information about installing the XFree86 binaries
provided by The XFree86 Project.

<![ %nobindist [
<bf>NOTE:No binary distributions are provided for this snapshot.  This
documentation is for reference only.</bf>
]]>

<p>
The XFree86 binaries that we provide for UNIX-like OS's (Linux, the
BSDs, Solaris, etc) are packaged in a platform-independent gzipped tar
format, aka "tarballs," identified by the <tt>.tgz</tt> suffix.  Along
with the binaries we provide a customized version of the GNU tar utility
called "extract" and an installation script.  We recommend that these
be used to install the binaries.  (The source for this customized version
of GNU tar can be found in the XFree86 CVS repository's "utils" module,
and from our <url name="ftp site"
url="ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/misc/utils-&utilsvers;.tgz">.)

<![ %snapshot [
<![ %havebindist [
<p>
Note: for
<![ %notrelcandidate [
snapshot releases
]]>
<![ %relcandidate [
release candidates
]]>
like this one, binaries are only available for a small number of platforms.
]]>
]]>


<sect>Downloading the XFree86 &relvers; binaries
<p>

<![ %updaterel [
XFree86 &relvers; is an update release.  The most recent full release
(&fullrelvers;) needs to be installed before installing this update.
Information about downloading and installing &fullrelvers; can be found
in the installation document for that version, which can be found
on the <url name="XFree86 web site"
url="http://www.xfree86.org/&fullrelvers/Install.html">.
]]>

We provide XFree86 &relvers; <![ %updaterel [update ]]>binaries for a range
of operating systems at our
<![ %snapshot; [
<url name="ftp site"
url="ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/snapshots/&relvers/binaries/">
]]>
<![ %release; [
<url name="ftp site"
url="ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/&relvers/binaries/">
]]>
and our
<![ %snapshot; [
<url name="web site"
url="http://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/snapshots/&relvers/binaries/">.
]]>
<![ %release; [
<url name="web site"
url="http://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/&relvers/binaries/">.
]]>
Often during releases our site is heavily loaded.  Instead of downloading
directly from us we recommend that instead you use one of our mirror
sites.

<p>
Our binaries are organized by sub-directories which correspond to each
of the OS/platforms for which we provide binaries.  First go to the
sub-directory  that represents your OS platform. In some cases (e.g.,
Linux) there may be a number of choices depending on the architecture
or libc version your platform uses.  In all case we recommend that you
first download the <tt>Xinstall.sh</tt> script, and run it as in the
following example to find out which binary distribution you should
download.

<tscreen><verb>
sh Xinstall.sh -check
</verb></tscreen>

The output of this utility tells you which is the correct set of binaries
for you to download.  If you are careful with this step you will save
yourself a lot time and trouble from NOT downloading an incompatible
distribution.

<bf>NOTES</bf>:

<itemize>
  <item>The Xinstall.sh script must be downloaded in binary mode,
	otherwise it will not  run correctly.  If you get lots of "command
	not found" messages when you try to run it, then it is most
	likely because the script was not  downloaded in binary mode.
	Some web browsers will not  do this for files of that name, so we
	also have a copy of it called "<tt>Xinstall.bin</tt>", and most
	browsers should download that correctly.  When downloading it
	under this name, select "save as" on your browser, and save the
	file under the name "<tt>Xinstall.sh</tt>".

  <item>The Xinstall.sh script requires some system commands and
	utilities to function correctly.  While most systems will have
	these, some Linux installations may not.  If the
	script fails because of some missing system command, you
	need to install it before you can continue. 

  <item>Always use the version of the Xinstall.sh script that is provided
	with the release.   Older versions of the script may not install
	newer releases correctly.

  <item>If the binary distribution reported by the Xinstall.sh script
	is not present on the XFree86 site, then there are two
	possibilities: The first is that it has not uploaded yet.  This
	is likeliest possibility if you are looking shortly after the
	release date.  The second possibility is that your target will
	not be be available for this release.  This is likeliest
	possibility if you are looking more than about two weeks after
	the release date.  Check <url name="here"
	url="http://www.xfree86.org/&relvers;/UPDATES.html"> for
	information about updates to our binary distributions, and <url
	name="here" url="http://www.xfree86.org/&relvers;/ERRATA.html">
	for errata related to this release.

</itemize>

Assuming that you have run the <tt>Xinstall.sh</tt> script and found the binary
<![ %updaterel; [update ]]>distribution suitable for your system,
download the necessary files.  The <![ %fullbinaries [thirteen (13)]]><![
%updaterel [four (4)]]> mandatory files for all installations are listed
below.  The installer script will complain if you do not have all of the
required files in the same directory.

<![ %fullbinaries [
<quote><verb>
1.   Xinstall.sh    The installer script
2.   extract        The utility for extracting tarballs
3.   Xbin.tgz       X clients/utilities and run-time libraries
4.   Xlib.tgz       Some data files required at run-time
5.   Xman.tgz       Manual pages
6.   Xdoc.tgz       XFree86 documentation
7.   Xfnts.tgz      Base set of fonts
8.   Xfenc.tgz      Base set of font encoding data
9.   Xetc.tgz       Run-time configuration files, part 1
10.  Xrc.tgz        Run-time configuration files, part 2
11.  Xvar.tgz       Run-time data
12.  Xxserv.tgz     XFree86 X server
13.  Xmod.tgz       XFree86 X server modules
</verb></quote>
]]>

<![ %updaterel [
<quote><verb>
1.   Xinstall.sh    The installer script
2.   extract        The utility for extracting tarballs
3.   Xupdate.tgz    Updated files except X server drivers
4.   Xdrivers.tgz   Updated X server drivers
</verb></quote>
]]>

NOTES:
<itemize>
  <item>Some web browsers have a problem downloading the <tt>extract</tt>
	utility correctly.  If you encounter this problem, download the
	version called <tt>extract.exe</tt>.  (NOTE: This is not a
	MS-DOS/Windows       executable.)

<![ %fullbinaries [
  <item>Some distributions do not require the <tt>Xvar.tgz</tt>
	tarball.  If it is present in the <tt>binaries</tt> sub-directory
	for your platform, then it is required.
]]>

  <item>The Darwin/Mac OS X distribution do not have or require the
	<![ %fullbinaries [<tt>Xmod.tgz</tt>]]><![ %updaterel
	[<tt>Xdrivers.tgz</tt>]]> tarball.

  <item>Some distributions may have additional mandatory tarballs.
	While rare, the installer script will tell you if any are missing.

</itemize>

<![ %fullbinaries [
The following thirteen (13) tarballs are optional.  You should download
the ones you want to install.

<quote><verb>
1.   Xdrm.tgz       Source for DRM kernel modules
2.   Xfsrv.tgz      Font server
3.   Xnest.tgz      Nested X server
4.   Xprog.tgz      X header files, config files and compile-time libs
5.   Xprt.tgz       X Print server
6.   Xvfb.tgz       Virtual framebuffer X server
7.   Xtinyx.tgz     TinyX servers
8.   Xf100.tgz      100dpi fonts
9.   Xfcyr.tgz      Cyrillic fonts
10.  Xfscl.tgz      Scalable fonts (Speedo, Type1 and TrueType)
11.  Xhtml.tgz      HTML version of the documentation
12.  Xps.tgz        PostScript version of the documentation
13.  Xpdf.tgz       PDF version of the documentation
</verb></quote>

NOTES:
<itemize>
  <item>Not all distributions will have all of the above optional tarballs.

  <item>Some distributions may have some additional optional tarballs.

</itemize>

If you miss some and want to install them later, go to the
<ref id="manual-install" name="Manual Installation"> section.
]]>

<sect>Installing XFree86 &relvers; using the <tt>Xinstall.sh</tt> script
<p>
We strongly recommend that our XFree86 &relvers; binaries be installed
using the <tt>Xinstall.sh</tt> script we provide.
<![ %updaterel [It is also important that the previous full release
(&fullrelvers;) is installed before installing this update release.
Make sure that you use the &relvers; version of the <tt>Xinstall.sh</tt>
script to install this update.  Older versions may not be able to do it
correctly.]]>
There are a lot of
steps in the manual installation process, and those steps can vary
according to the platform and hardware setup.  <![ %fullbinaries [There is a description of
the manual installation process for the most common cases <ref
id="manual-install" name="below">.]]>

You must login as the super user (root) to run the installer script and 
place all of the downloaded files into a single directory. 
Use the cd command to change to the chosen directory and 
run the installer script as follows:

<tscreen><verb>
sh Xinstall.sh
</verb></tscreen>

Answer the prompts as they come up.  If you are missing something that
is required, the installer may tell you to install it before trying
again.  If the problem is that you did not download all of mandatory
files aforementioned, then the installer will tell you which ones are
missing and ask you to download them before proceeding.

<sect1>Questions the installer may ask
<p>
The installer asks some questions that may not have obvious answers.  The
information here should help you answer them.  In most cases, apart from
the first question, the default answers should be OK.

If you run the installer from within an X session (the installer checks
if <tt>$DISPLAY</tt> is set), you will be warned that doing so is not
a good idea.  Unless you have a good reason for knowing that this will not 
be a problem, you should exit your X session, including stopping xdm or
equivalent if it is running, before continuing.  If you ignore this
warning and run into problems, well, you were warned!

<![ %fullbinaries [If you have an existing X installation, you]]>
<![ %updaterel [You ]]>
will be warned that proceeding
with this installation will overwrite it.  Only those things that are
part of our standard distribution will be overwritten.  Other X
applications that you may have installed will not be removed.  Some
configuration files may be overwritten though, but the installer should
prompt you before doing so and will attempt to backup the existing files
first.  As the opening greeting says, it is <bf>strongly</bf> recommended
that you backup any existing installation before proceeding.  If you
want your old applications to still be there after you've installed, do
not do the "backup" by simply renaming your old <tt>/usr/X11R6</tt>
directory.  It is better to make a copy of it, and then install over the
top of the original one.  If you run into problems and want to revert
to the old installation, you can then delete the overwritten one and
copy the saved version back.

During the first part of the installation over an existing version, the
script may remove some old files or directories that would get in the
way of the new installation.  It will list which files/directories have
been removed.  If none are listed, then none were removed.

<![ %fullbinaries [
The next step when installing over an existing version is to check for
existing configuration files.  On most platforms, the run-time
configuration files are installed by default under <tt>/etc/X11</tt>
instead of under <tt>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11</tt>.  The installer will give
you the option of moving any that are in the old location, creating the
necessary symbolic links.  If you do not want to have them moved, then
you should answer "no" when asked about it.  If you have no exiting
run-time configuration files in the <tt>/etc/X11</tt>, then the
new configuration files will be installed in <tt>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11</tt>
instead.

Note: for the rare systems that do not have symbolic links, this question
will not be asked.  The default answer is "yes" because that is best for
most situations.  It makes it easier to share the <tt>/usr/X11R6</tt>
directory between multiple hosts, and allows it to be mounted read-only.
If you do not need these features, then you can safely answer "no" if
you do not want them moved.

When installing over an existing version, you will be prompted before
each set of configuration files is installed.  If you haven't made any
Customisations to your existing configuration files, then you can safely
answer "yes" for each of these.  If you have made customisations, you
can try answering "no".  If you run into problems later, you may need
to manually merge your customisations into the the new version of the
configuration files.  If your platform uses customised xinit or xdm
configuration files, overwriting them may prevent your usual desktop
from coming up after installing XFree86.  For this reason you may wish
to answer "no" when prompted for those files.  An important set of files
to answer "yes" to is the xkb files.  If they are not up to date you may
run into problems running the latest XFree86 server.

The installer will attempt to make a backup of your original files before
copying in the new ones.  This may not be foolproof and it is recommended
that you still make your own backup of everything first.  If you wish
to install the configuration manually, they can be found in the
<tt>Xetc.tgz</tt> and <tt>Xrc.tgz</tt> tarballs.  See the <ref
id="manual-install" name="section below"> about manual installation for
information about extracting them separately.

After the configuration files have been dealt with, the other mandatory
components of the binary distribution will be installed.  This should
proceed without any user intervention.

If you downloaded any of the optional components, the installer will
ask you about each one before it is installed.  The default answer is
"yes".  If there are any that you've since decided that you do not want
to install, answer "no" when prompted.

After that is done, the main part of the installation is complete.  The
next steps are to tidy up some aspects of the installation.  The first
of these is to run "<tt>ldconfig</tt>" on systems that require it, so
that the newly installed shared libraries are accessible.  Then
the <tt>fonts.dir</tt> files in some directories are updated so that
the fonts can be accessed correctly.  Next, the installer checks to
see if your system has a termcap file or terminfo files.  If it finds
the former, it tells you how you may update the entries in that file.
If it finds the latter, it asks you if you want it to update them
for you.

You may be asked if you want to create links for the GL libraries and
header files.  The OpenGL standard on some platforms (Linux in particular)
says that these should be installed in the standard system locations
(<tt>/usr/lib</tt> and <tt>/usr/include</tt>), so the installer offers
to create the appropriate links.  If you're running Linux, you should
probably answer yes.  For other platforms it is your choice.  If you
already have another version of libGL in /usr/lib, answering "yes" will
remove it and replace it with a link to the version we supply.  The
installer will show you a listing of any existing versions before asking
if they should be replaced.

Finally, the installer asks you if you want a link created for the
<tt>rstart</tt> utility.  On most modern systems the link isn't essential,
so the default answer is "no".  Answer "yes" if you know that you need
it.  If you find later that you need it, you can create it easily by
running:

<tscreen><verb>
rm -f /usr/bin/rstartd
ln -s /usr/X11R6/bin/rstartd /usr/bin/rstartd
</verb></tscreen>

]]>

<sect1>After the installation is complete
<p>
The next step is to get the XFree86 server running.  The recommended
way to do this is to run:

<tscreen><verb>
XFree86 -autoconfig
</verb></tscreen>

This will work well in many cases, and if it suits your needs you can
make it the default by simply moving/renaming any existing
<tt>XF86Config</tt> file so that the XFree86 server does not find it.
If it doesn't, or if you want to make changes to the auto-detected
configuration, try the <tt>xf86cfg</tt> or <tt>xf86config</tt> utilities
or try running:

<tscreen><verb>
XFree86 -configure
</verb></tscreen>

Note that if you are running Darwin/Mac OS X, there is no step 3 :-).
You should skip this step, as configuration is not required or possible.
The X server configuration file is not used on Darwin/Mac OS X.

After the X server configuration is done, it may be advisable to reboot,
especially if you run xdm (or equivalent) or the font server (xfs).

<![ %fullbinaries [
<sect>Installing XFree86 &relvers; manually<label id="manual-install">
<p>
This section contains information about manually installing the XFree86
&relvers; binary distributions.  You should only use this method if you
know what you're doing.  The information here covers some common cases,
but not every possible case.  It also may not be complete or up to date.
Use at your own risk.

Put all of the downloaded files into a single directory (choose some
temporary location with enough space).  Become the super user (root).
All of the following commands should be run as root, and they should be
run from the directory that has all of the downloaded files.  The
"<tt>extract</tt>" utility should be used to unpack the tarballs.  This
is a customised version of GNU tar that has the gzip code built-in, and
which has a different usage when run under the name "extract".  One
important thing that <tt>extract</tt> does that most versions of tar do
not do by default is that it unlinks existing files before writing new
ones.  This is important when installing over an existing version of X.
If you choose to use some other utility to extract the tarballs, you're
on your own.

<sect1>A new installation
<p>
The simplest case is when there is no existing X installation.  The
installation procedure for this case is as follows:

<tscreen><verb>
chmod +x extract
mkdir /usr/X11R6
mkdir /etc/X11
./extract -C /usr/X11R6 X[a-df-qs-uw-z]*.tgz
./extract -C /usr/X11R6 Xvfb.tgz    # If you are installing Xvfb
./extract -C /etc Xetc.tgz
./extract -C /etc Xrc.tgz
./extract -C /var Xvar.tgz
ln -s /etc/X11/app-defaults /usr/X11R6/lib/X11
ln -s /etc/X11/fs /usr/X11R6/lib/X11
ln -s /etc/X11/lbxproxy /usr/X11R6/lib/X11
ln -s /etc/X11/proxymngr /usr/X11R6/lib/X11
ln -s /etc/X11/rstart /usr/X11R6/lib/X11
ln -s /etc/X11/twm /usr/X11R6/lib/X11
ln -s /etc/X11/xdm /usr/X11R6/lib/X11
ln -s /etc/X11/xinit /usr/X11R6/lib/X11
ln -s /etc/X11/xsm /usr/X11R6/lib/X11
ln -s /etc/X11/xserver /usr/X11R6/lib/X11
chmod ug-w /usr/X11R6/lib           # Make sure the permissions are OK
/sbin/ldconfig /usr/X11R6/lib       # For Linux
/sbin/ldconfig -m /usr/X11R6/lib    # For FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD
/usr/X11R6/bin/mkfontdir /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc
</verb></tscreen>

<sect1>Installing over an old installation
<p>
If you have an existing installation of X, you should make a backup copy
of it before installing the new version over the top of it.

Before doing anything else, make sure the <tt>extract</tt> command is
executable, and also link it to the name "<tt>gnu-tar</tt>" so that it
can be used as a regular <tt>tar</tt> command:

<tscreen><verb>
chmod +x extract
rm -f gnu-tar
ln extract gnu-tar
</verb></tscreen>

The first part of the procedure is to move the old run-time config files
from <tt>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11</tt> to <tt>/etc/X11</tt>.  Create
<tt>/etc/X11</tt> if it doesn't already exist.  For each of the following
sub-directories (<tt>app-defaults</tt>, <tt>fs</tt>, <tt>lbxproxy</tt>,
<tt>proxymngr</tt>, <tt>rstart</tt>, <tt>twm</tt>, <tt>xdm</tt>,
<tt>xinit</tt>, <tt>xsm</tt>, <tt>xserver</tt>) that you want to move,
check that there is a sub-directory of this name in
<tt>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11</tt>.  Create a sub-directory of the same name
under <tt>/etc/X11</tt>, then copy the files over by running:

<tscreen><verb>
./gnu-tar -C /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/subdir -c -f - . | \
  ./gnu-tar -C /etc/X11/subdir -v -x -p -U -f -
</verb></tscreen>

For each subdirectory that is moved, remove the one under
<tt>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11</tt> and create a symbolic link to the new
location:

<tscreen><verb>
rm -fr /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/subdir
ln -s /etc/X11/subdir /usr/X11R6/lib/X11
</verb></tscreen>

For those subdirectories that didn't already exist under
<tt>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11</tt>, create one under <tt>/etc/X11</tt> and
create the symbolic link to it:

<tscreen><verb>
mkdir /etc/X11/subdir
ln -s /etc/X11/subdir /usr/X11R6/lib/X11
</verb></tscreen>

Once that is done, extract the config files from the <tt>Xetc.tgz</tt>
and <tt>Xrc.tgz</tt> tarballs into a temporary directory:

<tscreen><verb>
mkdir tmpdir
./extract -C tmpdir Xetc.tgz
./extract -C tmpdir Xrc.tgz
</verb></tscreen>

and then copy each sub-directory over to the installed location:

<tscreen><verb>
./gnu-tar -C tmpdir/subdir -c -f - . | \
  ./gnu-tar -C /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/subdir -v -x -p -U -f -
</verb></tscreen>

If you have customised any config files in your old installation, you
may want to omit those sub-directories, or copy selected files over by
hand.

Once that's done, the main part of the installation can be done:

<tscreen><verb>
./extract -C /usr/X11R6 `pwd`/X[a-df-qs-uw-z]*.tgz
./extract -C /usr/X11R6 Xvfb.tgz    # If you are installing Xvfb
./extract -C /var Xvar.tgz
chmod ug-w /usr/X11R6/lib           # Make sure the permissions are OK
/sbin/ldconfig /usr/X11R6/lib       # For Linux
/sbin/ldconfig -m /usr/X11R6/lib    # For FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD
/usr/X11R6/bin/mkfontdir /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc
</verb></tscreen>

]]>


</article>
