Installation instructions for xfree86 4.1.0

In order to avoid file conflicts with Xphoton and old XFree86 3.3.6,
XFree86 4 is configured to install into /opt/X11R6.

After you download the tar file xfree86-4.1.0-1-bin-qnx6.tar.gz

su
cd /
tar zxvf xfree86-4.1.0-1-bin-qnx6.tar.gz

this should untar the files into
/etc/X11
/opt/X11R6

The first directory is for the configuration files and the second
one is for the XFree86 itself.

You will have to modify the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file for your
system. The one included is for my laptop. The stuff you want to
change are:

  1. “Monitor” section, put the correct “HorizSync” and “VertRefresh” for
    your monitor.
  2. “Device” section, put the driver for your graphics card.
    “ls /opt/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers” will give you some hints.
  3. “Screen” section for your color depth and resolution.

You have to start the mouse driver before starting X. The following
are some examples, you can do “use /usr/photon/bin/devi-hirun”
to find out more…

for PS2 mouse:
/usr/photon/bin/devi-hirun -Pr ps2 mousedev
for MS serial mouse on COM1:
/usr/photon/bin/devi-hirun -Pr msoft fd -d/dev/ser1

Of course, you can’t run XFree86 server inside Photon directly, you will
have to exit Photon to the text console mode and then “startx”.
I configured my system to boot up into text console, so I can either
run “startx” or “ph” to get into either X Window or Photon.
If your system is configured to boot into Photon directly, I heard
there is an article on how to change this:
http://qdn.qnx.com/support/bok/solution.qnx?10044

Put the the following two lines in your $HOME/.profile will be helpful:
export PATH=/opt/X11R6/bin:$PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/X11R6/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

If you want to run both X and Photon applications, there are two solutions:

  1. run “ph” to start Photon as your main GUI, use Xphoton for X apps.
  2. run “startx” to start X as your main GUI, use “phinx” for Photon apps.
    Since neither Xphoton nor phinx is reliable enough for heavy duty usage.
    They should work fine for casual usage. Depending on your main usage
    of the GUI, you can choose either 1 or 2 above.
    Looks to me like QSSL is not actively maintaining phinx or Xphoton. It
    could be either a conflict of interest for QSSL to do that, or QSSL doesn’t
    have enought internal resources. If later, I hope QSSL can release
    the source code of phinx/Xphoton. Their website says they will release
    the source code for the most part of RTP, except some core technology
    (kernels?). I don’t know if they consider phinx/Xphoton as core?

BTW, since X libraries of XFree86 4 and 3 aren’t exactly compatible,
we may have to recompile lots of the X applications…

Frank