Config
Once upon a time, long long ago, Linux users had to manually configure their X Window System in order to use graphical programs. Then came Linux distributions which provided install scripts that (most of the time) created a basic configuration file for the user, that they could then customize. Today, we are transitioning towards a "config-less" X, that figures out everything those install scripts used to, but all inside X itself.
Of course, such a transition is not without some rough patches, and it's possible users may find themselves in a spot where they may still need to do some manual configuration. And that is what this page is for.
Display Configuration
Setting up dual-screen using XRandR 1.2
If you have an ATI, Intel, or Nvidia video card with multiple outputs (such as a VGA + DVI) or a laptop with a secondary output port you can set up a dual screen configuration using the X Resize, Rotate and Reflection Extension (XRandR 1.2).
The easiest way to do this is using the Screen Resolution GNOME applet under System > Preferences (or run gnome-display-properties). This tool doesn't modify your xorg.conf, but rather applies the changes dynamically during GNOME startup. To customize your dual-head setup, simply drag and drop where you want your displays.
In Ubuntu 8.04, there is unfortunately still one manual configuration step required to create dual-screen layouts, which is to add a Virtual framebuffer size. The size needs to be equal or greater than the maximum combined size of your displays. For example, if you have two 1920x1200 monitors you wish to put side-by-side, you would add a Virtual line like this:
Section "Screen" Identifier "Default Screen" Device "Configured Video Device" DefaultDepth 24 SubSection "Display" Depth 24 Virtual 3840 1200 EndSubSection EndSection
Note that setting Virtual to a large but still conceivable value may result in an inability to use hardware acceleration on some cards.
Manual Configuration
An alternative is to set it up manually in xorg.conf. You might want to do this if you're not running GNOME, or if you want it to take effect earlier on in the bootup sequence, or if you want to trick things out beyond what the GUI tool is capable of.
Here is an example xorg.conf setting up dual-head with XRandR in Ubuntu 8.04:
Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Generic Keyboard" Driver "kbd" Option "XkbRules" "xorg" Option "XkbModel" "pc105" Option "XkbLayout" "us" Option "XkbOptions" "lv3:ralt_switch" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Configured Mouse" Driver "mouse" Option "CorePointer" Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true" EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Configured Video Device" BusID "PCI:1:0:0" Option "Monitor-VGA-0" "Left Monitor" Option "Monitor-DVI-0" "Right Monitor" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Left Monitor" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Right Monitor" Option "Right Of" "Left Monitor" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Default Screen" Device "Configured Video Device" DefaultDepth 24 SubSection "Display" Depth 24 Virtual 3840 1200 EndSubSection EndSection Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "Default Layout" Screen "Default Screen" InputDevice "Generic Keyboard" InputDevice "Configured Mouse" EndSection
There are three important things to note that you may have to alter.
The first is the BusID; look at the output of lspci | grep VGA to see what Bus ID your video card is on. You may even be able to omit this entirely.
The second is the Virtual setting in the Display SubSection. In general, this should be set to the total size of your combined screen. So if you have two 1920x1200 monitors you plan to put side by side, this would be (1920*2) x 1200 = 3840 x 1200.
The third is the name of your device's output name. In the above, it is "Monitor-VGA-0", but it could be "Monitor-VGA0" or something. Look at the output of xrandr to see what name your graphics driver uses.
As with the XRandR configuration method, settings Virtual to a large value may result in a loss of hardware acceleration, and thus an inability to use Compiz and its desktop effects.
Enabling displayconfig-gtk (Xinerama only)
Ubuntu 7.10 and 8.04 provide this older X display configuration tool. Be aware that it can mess up your xorg.conf file, so if you use it be sure to back up your xorg.conf first!
It can either be run from the command line, or enabled in the menus via System > Preferences > Main Menu / Applications > Other and make sure the "Screens and Graphics" box is checked. It can then be found at Applications > Other > Screens and Graphics.
Setting up S-Video
Most drivers aren't able to correctly detect when stuff is attached to the S-Video port, so to avoid problems it's shipped off by default for most cases. There's several ways to enable it:
Option A. Turn load detection back on:
xrandr --output S-video --set load_detection 1
Option B. To turn load detection back on permanently in xorg.conf so it persists between reboots, add this to your xorg.conf:
# /etc/X11/xorg.conf Section "Device" ... Option "TVDACLoadDetect" "TRUE" EndSection
Option C. Force S-Video on:
xrandr --addmode S-video 800x600
Input Configuration
Ubuntu 8.04 and later include a new version of Xorg which support input-hotplug. With this new functionality, it's likely that you won't need to do any configuration at all to make your devices work, assuming they're recognized and set up by the kernel. However, if you do need to do adjust things, read on.
Dynamic Input Configuration with xinput
The xinput command line tool can be used for some on-the-fly configuration adjustments. (Ubuntu 8.04 users will need to install xinput from 'universe'.)
To view a listing of the input devices X sees, run:
$ xinput list ... "Configured Mouse" id=2 [XExtensionPointer] Num_buttons is 9 Num_axes is 2 Mode is Relative Motion_buffer is 256 Axis 0 : Min_value is -1 Max_value is -1 Resolution is 1 Axis 1 : Min_value is -1 Max_value is -1 Resolution is 1 "Generic Keyboard" id=3 [XExtensionKeyboard] Num_keys is 248 Min_keycode is 8 Max_keycode is 255
Individual devices can be queried for more details:
$ xinput query-state "Configured Mouse" 2 classes : ButtonClass button[1]=up button[2]=up button[3]=up button[4]=up button[5]=up button[6]=up button[7]=up button[8]=up button[9]=up ValuatorClass Mode=Relative Proximity=In valuator[0]=3182 valuator[1]=969
If you have multiple mouse devices installed, you can switch which is considered the core pointer like this:
$ xinput set-pointer "Configured Mouse"
xinput can also be used to alter the button mappings on mice and adjust the acceleration and feedback settings.
In Ubuntu 8.10 and later, different input drivers may also expose arbitrary properties for applications to set. Synaptics touchpads are particularly configurable like this, but other devices have some more general properties.
$ xinput list-props "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" Device 'SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad': Device Enabled: 1 Synaptics Edges: 1632, 5312, 1575, 4281 Synaptics Finger: 25, 30, 256 Synaptics Tap Time: 180 Synaptics Tap Move: 220 Synaptics Tap Durations: 180, 180, 100 Synaptics Tap FastTap: 0 [...] $ xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Device Enabled" 8 0 $ xinput list-props "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" Device 'SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad': Device Enabled: 0 Synaptics Edges: 1632, 5312, 1575, 4281 Synaptics Finger: 25, 30, 256 Synaptics Tap Time: 180 Synaptics Tap Move: 220 Synaptics Tap Durations: 180, 180, 100 Synaptics Tap FastTap: 0 [...]
Input Configuration with HAL
Beginning with Ubuntu 8.10, input device configuration is done through HAL rather than in your xorg.conf. The syntax for HAL fdi files is a bit different than xorg.conf, and editing XML is only marginally better than editing xorg.conf... but on the plus side configuration changes don't require an X restart - just replugging of the device.
Essentially, to configure a device, add a new .fdi file for it into your /etc/hal/fdi/policy/ directory and then restart hal for it to take effect.
For example, use this sort of fdi file to set Synaptics touchpad options (see the synaptics manpage for possible options, or the Synaptics documentation for other methods):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <deviceinfo version="0.2"> <device> <match key="input.x11_driver" string="synaptics"> <merge key="input.x11_options.VertTwoFingerScroll" type="string">true</merge> <merge key="input.x11_options.HorizTwoFingerScroll" type="string">true</merge> </match> </device> </deviceinfo>
The match elements are used to conditionally match on various attributes related to the device or system. In this case we apply these settings to any device using the synaptics (ie. touchpad) driver. The append elements are used to add parameters to various options. Options previously put in xorg.conf can be set using input.x11_options.<option-name> (string).
Here is an example .fdi file for setting up keys on a Dell Precision M20:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <deviceinfo version="0.2"> <device> <match key="/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer:system.hardware.product" prefix="Precision"> <match key="/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer:system.hardware.product" contains="M20"> <append key="input.keymap.data" type="strlist">e005:brightnessdown</append> <!-- Fn+Down arrow Brightness Down --> <append key="input.keymap.data" type="strlist">e006:brightnessup</append> <!-- Fn+Up arrow Brightness Up --> <append key="input.keymap.data" type="strlist">e007:battery</append> <!-- Fn+F3 battery icon --> <append key="input.keymap.data" type="strlist">e008:wlan</append> <!-- Fn+F2 Turn On/Off Wireless --> <append key="input.keymap.data" type="strlist">e009:ejectclosecd</append> <!-- Fn+F10 Eject CD --> <append key="input.keymap.data" type="strlist">e00a:suspend</append> <!-- Fn+F1 hibernate --> <append key="input.keymap.data" type="strlist">e00b:displaytoggle</append> <!-- Fn+F8 CRT/LCD --> <append key="info.capabilities" type="strlist">input.keymap</append> </match> </match> </device> </deviceinfo>
These match elements are used to match on the system's product name, to check that it starts with "Precision" and contains "M20". In this case, we're appending some [key]:[function] pairs to the input.keymap.data option.
As a contrived example, let's say you wanted to specify the dvorak-intl variant and configure the eurosign to the E key:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <deviceinfo version="0.2"> <device> <match key="info.capabilities" contains="input.keys"> <merge key="input.xkb.variant" type="string">dvorak-intl</merge> <merge key="input.xkb.options" type="string">eurosign:e</merge> </match> </device> </deviceinfo>
An example of configuring for the Logitech MX1000 USB mouse:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <deviceinfo version="0.2"> <device> <match key="info.capabilities" contains="input.mouse"> <merge key="input.x11_driver" type="string">mouse</merge> <!-- Logitech tweaks --> <match key="@input.originating_device:usb.vendor_id" int="0x46d"> <match key="@input.originating_device:usb.product_id" int_outof="0xc50e;0xc518"> <merge key="input.x11_options.RelHWHEELOptions" type="string">invert</merge> </match> </match> </match> </match> </device> </deviceinfo>
The vendor_id and product_id values can be found via
$ cat /proc/bus/input/devices
Contributed Documentation
The following documentation was provided by various people in the past. Generally, much of it was written for pre-InputHotplug X, so may or may not still work in Intrepid.
Keyboard Config
Microsoft Natural Ergonomic 4000 keyboard - Probably obsolete
Logitech G15 keyboard - Probably obsolete
Mouse Config
Intellimouse Mouseman buttons - Probably obsolete
Tablet Config
Touchpad Config
Game Controller Config