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X Window System
X Window System - also called X and X11 according to the current version - is a protocoll for handling the display of the most unix-like operating systems. Xorg is the most used implementation of the X protocoll. It is maintained by the X.Org Foundation.
Usage
This section addresses various usages of the X Window System.
Display Managers
Display managers are user interfaces displayed after booting.
They are featured in a separate entry.
This also includes any configuration needed for it like xsession.
Screen Locker
The X Window System allows various screen lockers to be used.
One of them is slock by suckless.
This will stand in as a screen locker for this section.
The screen can be run by simply running the following command.
slock
By default this will not be run automatically when the computer goes into sleep.
This can be changed by installing and using xss-lock like the following example shows.
xss-lock -- slock &
Run this command at startup if the automatic locking is wanted.
In this context it can be useful to enable the screensaver or set the computer to automatically go to sleep after a certain amount of time. For this navigate to the corresponding section.
Kill Windows
Windows can be killed with the utility xkill.
Depending on the distribution used it maybe has to be installed.
It often is bundled in a package named xorg-xkill.
By running xkill the mouse cursor will turn into an x.
With the mouse the window to close can then be selected.
Peripheral Devices
X also handles various options of peripheral devices.
In the files of the directory /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d and the file
/etc/X11/xorg.conf these settings can be found.
The handling of input devices is achieved by xinput.
For this the identifier of the device to show the options of is needed.
By running xinput list a list of all devices with identifiers handled by
xinput is printed.
Properties and options of a peripheral device can then be shown by running
xinput list-props <id> where <id> is the identifier of the
device.
Touchpad
This section describes the handling of touchpads by X.
Toggle the touchpad
To toggle the touchpad on or off
a simple script
can be used that uses synclient TouchpadOff=1 or synclient TouchpadOff=0.
This requires xf86-input-synaptics which is a synaptics driver for
notebook touchpads.
Enable Tap to Click
On Touchpads the tap to click option can be enabled by adding the following lines to the config
file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/99-synaptics-overrides.conf.
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "touchpad overrides"
MatchDriver "synaptics"
Option "TapButton1" "1"
EndSection
Keyboard
This section describes the handling of keyboards by X.
Change Keyboardlayout
To temporarily change the layout of the keyboard just run
setxkbmap <your preferred layout>.
For a permanent change run localectl set-x11-keymap <your preferred layout>.
If there are two main layouts are used then the following command can be used to switch between
them.
Change <layout 1> and <layout 2> according to preferences.
`setxkbmap -query | grep -q '<layout 1>' && setxkbmap <layout 2> || setxkbmap <layout 1>
Using SXHKD a hotkey can be setup to seamlessly transition between the two layouts.
Display
This section describes the handling of displays by X. Additionally to the guides in this section that are independent of the used graphics unit special configuration for Nvidia and Intel can be found in their respective entries in this wiki.
Turning Off the Screen
To save power the screen is set to turn black after a given amount of time.
Adding the following lines to your /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/dpms.conf will permanently enable screen
blanking.
Configure the times of the following section (both 10 minutes at the moment) and add it to the
ServerFlags option of the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/dpms.conf or alternatively add them into the
file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.
Set the time to 0 for disabling the turning off of the screen.
Section "ServerFlags"
Option "OffTime" "10"
EndSection
This can be disabled temporarily by running xset s off.
The screen can also be turned off instantly with the command xset dpms force off.
If OffTime does not work add the following to the file `/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/dpms.conf.
Section "ServerFlags"
Option "BlankTime" "10"
EndSection
Another option to do this is by using the command xset.
An example for this are the follwing commands which will enable the screensaver to act upon 10
minutes of inactivity.
xset s on
xset s 600
For more informations on this visit the Arch wiki.
Adjust DPI and UI Scale
The dots per inch (DPI) is a measurement of spatial video dot density.
It has effect on the size of UI elements.
It is recommended to set the DPI inside the file ~/.config/xorg/xpcspec with the following line.
The DPI number should be adjusted as needed.
Xft.dpi: 100
Afterwards ~/.config/xorg/xpcspec needs to be sourced in the ~/.xinitrc file.
For this to work the following line needs to be added into the ~/.xinitrc file .
[ -f "$HOME/.config/xorg/xpcspec" ] && xrdb -merge "$HOME/.config/xorg/xpcspec"
Mouse
This section describes the handling of mouse by X.
Emulation of the Middle Mouse Button
If middle mouse button emulation is enabled the system will emulate a middle
mouse button click when clicking both left and right mouse button
simultaneously.
The middle mouse button emulation can be activated or deactivated.
First the current options have to be confirmed as explained in
the peripheral section.
Important is the property named libinput Middle Emulation Enabled.
To enable the usage of the middle mouse button it should be set to 1.
As written by
opinion_no9
there are two ways to change this property.
If the change is only needed temporarily
xinput set-prop <id> "libinput Middle Emulation Enabled" <flag> can be run.
<id> is the identifier of the mouse and is 0 for disabling and 1
for enabling the middle mouse button.
For permanent change of the property a change or addition to
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf can be made.
If a section for the device is already present the line
Option "MiddleEmulation" "true" should be added to it.
Otherwise a catchall section for all types of mouses can be created like the
following:
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "middle button emulation class"
MatchIsPointer "on"
Option "MiddleEmulation" "true"
EndSection
Troubleshooting
This section addresses various errors that can happen when using the X window system.
Error Failed to initialize the NVIDIA kernel module
When starting up the X server the error message Failed to initialize the NVIDIA kernel module can
appear.
This usually means that either the Nvidia kernel module is not installed.
This can be fixed by installing Nvidia.
If this is not the problem then the initial ramdisk should be
regenerated.
File Picker Doesn't Work
If the file picker doesn't work in applications like Discord for example first
check if the desktop portal is installed.
For that search for the package xdg-desktop-portal or a similar named one using your
package manager.
If it is installed check if it starts up correctly by using the command
systemctl --user status xdg-desktop-portal as described in the
SystemD entry.
A possible error is cannot open display as it was described and fixed by rockzombie2 and V1del in
an Arch Linux
forum post.
To fix this you can run the following commands to temporarily make the file picker work.
systemctl --user import-environment DISPLAY XAUTHORITY
systemctl --user restart xdg-desktop-portal
If that works make sure the Xorg configs are sourced for users aswell.
It is possible that the following code block is missing in the local .xinitrc.
This would create similar errors to the ones experienced.
if [ -d /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d ] ; then
for f in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/?*.sh ; do
[ -x "$f" ] && . "$f"
done
unset f
fi