Halt Condition

Installing a non-intrusive X.org server on Debian

This assumes you already have a working Nvidia XFree86 config. First off stop your current xdm/gdm session and login to a console. Now install the following packages:

flex bison libpam-dev libpng-dev libfontconfig-dev libxft-dev automake1.9 ncurses-dev

Get the X11 R6.8.0 source and unpack it. This gives you an “xc” directory. Now …

mkdir xc-build
cd xc-build
lndir ../xc

We need to configure the package:

cd config/cf
cp xorgsite.def host.def

Edit the host.def file and add the following lines:

#define ProjectRoot /usr/local/X11R6.8
#define NothingOutsideProjectRoot YES
#define HasFreetype2 YES
#define HasFontconfig YES

Now build:

cd ../.. # i.e. to the xc-build directory
make World # Pipe this to a file or use a ’screen’ session if you want
make install

You now need to the install the Nvidia driver into the new X11 tree. Get the latest version and do:

sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6111-pkg1.run -a -n –x-prefix /usr/local/X11R6.8

Configure X.org:

cd /etc/X11
cp XF86Config-4 xorg.conf

Edit xorg.conf and do the following:

• In the keyboard section change the driver “keyboard” to “kbd”.
• Remove the line that sets “XkbRules” to “xfree86″.
• In the Nvidia driver section add the line
  

  Option “RenderAccel” “true”

• Add the following section:
  

  Section “Extensions”
  Option “Composite” “Enable”
  EndSection

Now you need to get the system to use this. Login as a normal user and set the following:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/X11R6.8/lib
export PATH=/usr/local/X11R6.8/bin:$PATH

Create and edit the file “.xinitrc” and set it to the following:

#!/bin/sh
ssh-agent gnome-session # Or KDE, or whatever

Now you’re set to go. Type:

startx

You should now have a normal X11 session, but running under the X.org server. Time to make it interesting:

export CVSROOT=:pserver:anoncvs@cvs.freedesktop.org:/cvs/xapps
cvs login
cvs -z3 co xcompmgr
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/X11R6.8/lib/pkgconfig

cd xcompmgr
./autogen.sh
./configure
make

Now we can run the system with shadows:

./xcompmgr -c # Soft shadows
./xcompmgr -s # Hard shadows

But the real fun is in the transparency. With xcompmgr running in another shell do:

cvs -z3 co transset
cd transset
make
./transset 0.7

… and click on a window; it should turn transparent. You may need to restart xcompmgr for it to pick up changes.