8mb of memory is a recommended minimum for running X. The server, window manager and an xterm take about 4 Mb of memory themselves. On a 4Mb system that would leave nothing left over for other applications like gcc that expect a few meg free. X will work with 4Mb of memory, but in practice compilation while running X can take 5 or 10 times as long due to constant paging.
The easiest way for new users to start X windows is to type:
startx >& startx.log
Error messages are lost unless you redirect them
because the server takes over the screen.
To get out of X windows, type: ``exit
'' in the console xterm.
You can customize your X by creating .xinitrc
, .xserverrc
,
and .twmrc
files in your home directory as described in the xinit
and startx man pages.
To start the display manager, log in as root on the console and type:
``xdm -nodaemon
''.
You can start xdm automatically on bootup by disabling the console getty
and adding the following code to /etc/rc.local
:
if [ -x /usr/X11R6/bin/xdm ]; then
echo -n ' xdm'; /usr/X11R6/bin/xdm
fi
To disable the console getty, change ``on'' to ``off'' in
the console entry in /etc/ttys
:
ttyv0 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" pc off secure
Note that the binary distributions of XFree86 for NetBSD don't include support for the XDM-AUTHORIZATION-1 protocol.