X Window Guide

Starting an X Session

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Starting an X Session

Starting from the console's UNIX shell prompt, ensure that /usr/bin/X11 is included in the search path variable and issue the command xinit. The screen may then resemble something like that shown in figure 8, which is the default startup screen.

Figure 8: The default X startup screen

The command xinit has started the server process and set the user's DISPLAY environment variable to indicate that clients, by default, should attempt to connect to this server. Then, it invoked one client, called xterm, which has connected to the server. The mouse pointer is currently the

in the centre of the screen. The upper left corner of the screen contains the xterm window, inside which is the UNIX C-shell prompt, sun%. Xterm is a terminal emulation program, providing terminal access to the computer on which it is running. To use the xterm terminal emulator, it is necessary to move the mouse pointer in to the xterm window, where the

changes to an I-beam.

JR Pitchers
Wed May 3 16:45:04 BST 1995