Guide to X11/Configuring

Introduction · Configuring · Building · Starting Sessions · Starting Programs · Fonts · Window Managers · Xt Clients · Political History · References and Links

Supplements: Commands

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Configuring

You would do

$ XFree86 -configure
$ Xorg -configure

or

$ xf86cfg
$ xorgcfg

Especially with XFree86 4.0 or Xorg, the "xf86config" and "xorgconfig" scripts are obsolete (unless you have old hardware).

This makes your XF86Config or xorg.conf file.

Debian and Ubuntu

If you use Debian, you can create a new config file if you reconfigure the xserver-xorg package. Running this will overwrite your current configuration, so create a backup copy, e.g.:

cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.new.backup

Reconfigure with:

dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

Easier Alternatives / Troubleshooting

Usually, the first thing you want to do if X is misbehaving is shut it down. Usually this can be done with ctrl-alt-backspace, but sometimes KDM/GDM will start back up (the login manager). Press ctrl-n or whatever for console login.
Login in as root and type "init 3" to go to runlevel 3. This will allow you to install graphic drivers.
If you are using opensuse, you should run sax2, or if that doesn't work, the option for non-accelerated x, sax2-vesa.
If you have an nvidia graphics card, they have an x configure script. the command is nvidia-xconfig, start typing "nvidia" and press tab twice. If you don't get anything, you need to install the graphics driver.

If you have Opensuse, you might receive help from Novell's Bugzilla team. They can't always immediately resolve the issue, but often you'll find that either because of your efforts or someone else, things are fixed in a later revision.

Manual Configuration

For manual configuration of almost anything, search for the gentoo or gentoo wikis. For this subject, http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/xorg-config.xml should be useful.