3. Installing XFree86 4.2.1 using the Xinstall.sh script

We strongly recommend that our XFree86 4.2.1 binaries be installed using the Xinstall.sh script that we provide. It is also important that the previous full release (4.2.0) is installed before installing this update release. Make sure that you use the 4.2.1 version of the Xinstall.sh 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.

You must login as the super user (root) to run the installer script. Place all of the downloaded files into a single directory (choose a temporary location with enough space). Use the cd command to change to that directory and then run the installer script as follows:

sh Xinstall.sh

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.

3.1. Questions the installer may ask

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 $DISPLAY is set), you will be warned that doing so is not a good idea. Unless you have a good reason for knowing that this won't 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!

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. As the opening greeting says, it is strongly recommended that you backup any existing installation before proceeding. If you want your old applications to still be there after you've installed, don't do the "backup" by simply renaming your old /usr/X11R6 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.

3.2. After the installation is complete

The next step is to configure the X server. That is covered in detail in an as-yet unwritten document :-(. In the meantime, there are three ways to create a basic X server configuration file for XFree86 4.2.1. One is to run the xf86config utility. Another is to run the xf86cfg utility. The third option is to use the new -configure X server option:

XFree86 -configure

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.

The X server config file (XF86Config) format has changed compared to 3.3.x. Also, its default location is now /etc/X11. Finally, there is now only one X server for driving video hardware, and it is called "XFree86". Once you're satisfied with the operation of the new X server, you can safely remove the old XF86_* and/or XF98_* X server binaries from /usr/X11R6/bin.

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).