(Answer) (Category) Linux on PowerPC FAQ-O-Matic : (Category) X Windows :
How do I start X?
X is the display server - the program that manages drawing to the graphics device. You will almost never run this program directly, because you also have to start a client that uses the server, hence...

There are two programs that start up an X server and start some clients (applications): startx and xinit, both in /usr/X11R6/bin.

Check man pages for what these programs do. To read these man pages, you need to make sure /usr/X11R6/man is in your MANPATH environment variable. (For bash, use MANPATH=${MANPATH}:/usr/X11R6/man ; export MANPATH and for tcsh setenv MANPATH $(MANPATH):/usr/X11R6/man). It won't hurt if it's already there. Then, man startx and man xinit should give you some docs (assuming you have the rpm X11R6.3-man installed, which you should have).

Basically, these programs end up running $HOME/.xinitrc, into which you can put commands to start up some windows, and a window manager. You might even get some default xinitrc from a system directory, though I tend to customize startup scripts anyway. The system default xinitrc will usually startup a default window manager (ex, fvwm) and some simple clients if you use the system defaults.

If you get stuck in X, where you can't seem to do anything, you can switch to a virtual console and get another login. Use Cmd-Ctrl-F1 through Cmd-Ctrl-F6 to get at the six virtual consoles. Cmd-Ctrl-F7 returns you to X. In the console, you can use 'ps' and 'kill' (though be careful using kill as root).

vallon@mindspring.com

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