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<title>OpenBSD FAQ: The X Window System</title>
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<h2 id=OpenBSD>
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<i>Open</i><b>BSD</b></a>
FAQ - The X Window System
<small>
<a href="index.html">[FAQ Index]</a>
</small>
</h2>
<hr>

<ul>
<li><a href="#Intro"        >Introduction to X</a>
<li><a href="#ConfigX"      >Configuring X</a>
<li><a href="#StartingX"    >Starting X</a>
<li><a href="#CustomizingX" >Customizing X</a>
</ul>

<hr>

<h2 id="Intro">Introduction to X</h2>

The X Window System (sometimes just called "X") is the environment which
provides graphics services to OpenBSD and other Unix-like systems.
By itself, X provides very little, since one also must have a window manager
to present a user interface.
OpenBSD ships with the <a href="https://man.openbsd.org/cwm">cwm(1)</a>,
<a href="https://man.openbsd.org/fvwm">fvwm(1)</a> and
<a href="https://man.openbsd.org/twm">twm(1)</a> window managers, although
many others are available as <a href="faq15.html">packages</a>.

<p>
It is possible to run X clients on a system without any graphical support.
For example, one could have an application (the X client) running on an
ARM system, displaying its output on an amd64's graphical display (the X
server).
Since X is a well-defined, cross-platform protocol, it is even possible
to have an X application running on, for example, a Linux machine use an
OpenBSD machine for its display.
The client and server can also be running on the same machine, and for
most of this section, that will be the assumption.

<h2 id="ConfigX">Configuring X</h2>

For the majority of hardware on the most common platforms, X requires no
configuration at all.

<p>
The details of manual X configuration vary considerably from platform
to platform.

<h2 id="StartingX">Starting X</h2>

The recommended way to run X is with the
<a href="https://man.openbsd.org/xenodm">xenodm(1)</a> display manager.
It offers some important security benefits over the traditional
<a href="https://man.openbsd.org/startx">startx(1)</a> command.

<p>
If <a href="https://man.openbsd.org/xenodm">xenodm(1)</a> wasn't enabled
during installation, it can be done so later like any other system daemon:

<pre class="cmdbox">
# <b>rcctl enable xenodm</b>
# <b>rcctl start xenodm</b>
</pre>

On some platforms, you will need to disable the console
<a href="https://man.openbsd.org/getty">getty(8)</a> to use it.
This is not needed on amd64, i386 or macppc.

<h2 id="CustomizingX">Customizing X</h2>

OpenBSD's default X environment is fully functional, but you may wish to
customize it.
When an X session is started, shell scripts in the user's home directory can be
used to start as many programs as desired.
Most of the programs in these scripts should run in the background, but the
last one (typically the window manager) should run in the foreground.
When the window manager exits, the script will also exit, and X will return
to the <a href="https://man.openbsd.org/xenodm">xenodm(1)</a> login prompt.

<p>
After the user logs in from
<a href="https://man.openbsd.org/xenodm">xenodm(1)</a>, the
<code>/etc/X11/xenodm/Xsession</code> script checks whether there is a
<code>$HOME/.xsession</code> script.
In the simplest case, the user's <code>~/.xsession</code> script will contain
only one line specifying the preferred window manager to launch.
It can contain any number of other commands, however:

<pre class="cmdbox">
export ENV=$HOME/.kshrc
xsetroot -solid grey &
xterm -bg black -fg white +sb &
cwm
</pre>

Note that the window manager <a href="https://man.openbsd.org/cwm">cwm(1)</a>
is <i>not</i> being run in the background.
This means that X will stay running until it exits.