Introduction to Xorg-7.7

Setting up the Xorg Build Environment

First, you'll need to create a working directory:

mkdir xc &&
cd xc

As with previous releases of the X Window System, it may be desirable to install Xorg into an alternate prefix. This is no longer common practice among Linux distributions. The common installation prefix for Xorg on Linux is /usr. There is no standard alternate prefix, nor is there any exception in the current revision of the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard for Release 7 of the X Window System. Alan Coopersmith of Sun Microsystems, has recently stated "At Sun, we were using /usr/X11 and plan to stick with it." Only the /opt/* prefix or the /usr prefix adhere to the current FHS guidelines.

Choose your installation prefix, and set the XORG_PREFIX variable with the following command:

export XORG_PREFIX="<PREFIX>"

Throughout these instructions, you will use the following configure switches for all of the packages. Create the XORG_CONFIG variable to use for this parameter substitution:

export XORG_CONFIG="--prefix=$XORG_PREFIX --sysconfdir=/etc \
    --localstatedir=/var --disable-static"

Create an /etc/profile.d/xorg.sh configuration file containing these variables as the root user:

cat > /etc/profile.d/xorg.sh << EOF
XORG_PREFIX="$XORG_PREFIX"
XORG_CONFIG="--prefix=\$XORG_PREFIX --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var --disable-static"
export XORG_PREFIX XORG_CONFIG
EOF
chmod 644 /etc/profile.d/xorg.sh

If you've decided to not use the standard prefix, be sure to add $XORG_PREFIX/bin to your PATH environment variable, and $XORG_PREFIX/lib/pkgconfig and $XORG_PREFIX/share/pkgconfig to your PKG_CONFIG_PATH variable. It is also helpful to specify additional search paths for gcc and an include directory for the aclocal program. Issue the following commands as the root user:

cat >> /etc/profile.d/xorg.sh << "EOF"

pathappend $XORG_PREFIX/bin             PATH
pathappend $XORG_PREFIX/lib/pkgconfig   PKG_CONFIG_PATH
pathappend $XORG_PREFIX/share/pkgconfig PKG_CONFIG_PATH

pathappend $XORG_PREFIX/lib             LIBRARY_PATH
pathappend $XORG_PREFIX/include         C_INCLUDE_PATH
pathappend $XORG_PREFIX/include         CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH

ACLOCAL='aclocal -I $XORG_PREFIX/share/aclocal'

export PATH PKG_CONFIG_PATH ACLOCAL LIBRARY_PATH C_INCLUDE_PATH CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH
EOF

You should also add $XORG_PREFIX/lib to the /etc/ld.so.conf file. Again, as the root user, issue the following command:

echo "$XORG_PREFIX/lib" >> /etc/ld.so.conf

You should also modify /etc/man_db.conf, adding appropriate MANDATORY_MANPATH, MANPATH_MAP, and MANDB_MAP entries following the examples for /usr/X11R6. Issue the following command as the root user:

sed "s@/usr/X11R6@$XORG_PREFIX@g" -i /etc/man_db.conf

Some applications look for shared files in /usr/share/X11. Create a symbolic link to the proper location as the root user:

ln -sf $XORG_PREFIX/share/X11 /usr/share/X11

If building KDE, some cmake files look for Xorg in places other than $XORG_PREFIX. Allow cmake to find Xorg with:

ln -sf $XORG_PREFIX /usr/X11R6

Finally, if building on x86_64, you will need to create the $XORG_PREFIX/lib directory and the $XORG_PREFIX/lib64 symlink. Again, as the root user, issue the following commands:

install -v -m755 -d $XORG_PREFIX &&
install -v -m755 -d $XORG_PREFIX/lib &&
ln -sf lib $XORG_PREFIX/lib64