Speaking about the X Window System is so vast, that we could spend entire hours speaking about it.

The X Window System is the common graphical user interface for UNIX, and, believe me, it's worth a try! It has tons of features that its younger brothers don't have (i. e., it's network transparent, its interface can be changed, etc.), but the most important thing of all is that X can be used by more of a user at a time.

You might be asking: Where, where do I get it?. Well, it's also free, but you've got two choices:

• To download it from the Open Group (formerly X Consortium), at 14MB per file downloaded, or...
• To download it from the XFree86 project, at less than 1MB per file.

As I might suppose, you might have chosen number two. Let's start.

First, you should download all of the basic files. That is:

With all this on your system, you must create the directory /usr/X11R6 as root, and move the files there. After that, unpack them, typing

tar xvfz <filename>.tgz

Once you've unpacked them, edit your (typing edit .bash_profile) .bash_profile, located in the /root directory, and add /usr/X11R6/bin to your PATH variable.

Also, edit /etc/ld.so.conf, and add /usr/X11R6/lib to that file, then logout and login again as root.

Once you've logged in, type xf86config, and that's the program to configure X.

After you run xf86config, you should know your HSync and VSync rates of your monitor, to avoid turning your monitor into trash. Then, after configuring, type startx, and if all went ok, you'll see a window (like a MS-DOS window), called xterm. You'll be able to run all of the programs located in /usr/X11R6/bin from that xterm.

After you explore for a while the default interface of X, you'll be able to make your decision about changing your interface.