Red Hat Linux 7 Unleashed

By William Ball

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • About the Lead Authors
  • About the Contributing Authors
  • Acknowledgments
  • Tell Us What You Think!
  • Introduction
  • I. Red Hat Linux Installation and User Services
  • Chapter 1. Introduction to Red Hat Linux
  • Chapter 2. Installation of Your Red Hat System
  • Chapter 3. LILO and Other Boot Managers
  • Chapter 4. Configuring the X Window System, Version 11
    • What Is X11?
    • XFree86 or Another X11?
    • New Features of XFree86 4.0.1
    • Choosing a Configuration Tool
    • Examining the XF86Config File
    • Starting X11 with the startx Command
    • Using xdm
    • Troubleshooting XFree86
    • Summary
  • Chapter 5. Window Managers
  • Chapter 6. Connecting to the Internet
  • Chapter 7. IRC, ICQ, and Chat Clients
  • Chapter 8. Using Multimedia and Graphics Clients
  • II. Configuring Services
  • Chapter 9. System Startup and Shutdown
  • Chapter 10. SMTP and Protocols
  • Chapter 11. FTP
  • Chapter 12. Apache Server
  • Chapter 13. Internet News
  • Chapter 14. Domain Name Service and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
  • Chapter 15. NIS: Network Information Service
  • Chapter 16. NFS: Network Filesystem
  • Chapter 17. Samba
  • III. System Administration and Management
  • Chapter 18. Linux Filesystems, Disks, and Other Devices
  • Chapter 19. Printing with Linux
  • Chapter 20. TCP/IP Network Management
  • Chapter 21. Linux System Administration
  • Chapter 22. Backup and Restore
  • Chapter 23. System Security
  • IV. Red Hat Development and Productivity
  • Chapter 24. Linux C/C++ Programming Tools
  • Chapter 25. Shell Scripting
  • Chapter 26. Automating Tasks
  • Chapter 27. Configuring and Building Kernels
  • Chapter 28. Emulators, Tools, and Window Clients
  • V. Appendixes
  • A. The Linux Documentation Project
  • B. Top Linux Commands and Utilities
  • C. The GNU General Public License
  • D. Red Hat Linux RPM Package Listings

What Is X11?

The X Window System is a networking windowing system that provides a base set of communications protocols and functions for building graphical interface clients for computers with bitmapped displays. You should never refer to the X Window System as X Windows; the proper terms of reference are X, X11, X Version 11, or the X Window System, version 11.

X was first developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the early 1980s. The first commercial release of X was X10 in the mid-80s, with the first X11R1 release in 1987. Though the original MIT consortium has since disbanded, and X now falls under ownership of non-profit X.Org, a consortium whose executive membership includes Compaq, Hewlett Packard, Hummingbird, IBM, SGI, and Sun Microsystems, X11's general client/server model of operation has remained unchanged.

X was designed from the ground up to support networking graphics. Programs or applications under X are known as clients. X clients do not directly draw or manipulate graphics on your display, but instead communicate with your X server, which in turn controls your display. Although many home users will run clients and an X server on a single computer, it is also possible to run multiple X servers (and X sessions) on a single computer and to launch clients from remote computers—and to then have them displayed locally by a local server. This also means that it is possible to run X over various types of networks or even through a serial dial-up line!

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