Hitchhiker's Guide to Openbsd

11.1.1 - How much computer do I need to run X?
X itself is a pretty large program, a fast computer will be appreciated if you are starting it and stopping it 
regularly. However, once running, it performs pretty responsively on a very modest computer. To get 
responsive display performance on some platforms, even for just text, you will want to run X. These 
platforms, such as 
sparc
 and 
sparc64
, were intended to be used with a graphical interface, and the text 
console performance is very poor. 
That being said, the point of running X is usually to run X applications. Some X applications are very 
lean, others will seemingly take and use all the processor and RAM you can give them. Of course, some 
users just like to use X to provide a large number of 
xterm(1)
s, which can be done on very modest 
hardware. 
11.1.2 - Can I have any kind of graphics without X?
Assuming you won't accept 
ASCII graphics
, that requires some kind of framebuffer console driver. 
Some operating systems provide this, but there is not currently one for OpenBSD, nor is there much 
interest among developers for one. 
11.2 - Configuring X
Good news: In the vast majority of hardware in most platforms, X requires no configuration at 
all, it Just Works. 
The details of manual configuration of X varies considerably from platform to platform. In all cases, 
there will be instructions and other platform-specific information in 
/usr/X11R6/README
in the 
installed system. 
Several platforms require the 
xf86(4)
 X aperture driver, which provides access to the memory and I/O 
ports of a VGA board and the PCI configuration registers required by the X servers. This driver must be 
enabled before it is used, either by answering "yes" to this question during install: 
Do you expect to run the X window System [no]
http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq11.html (2 of 14)9/4/2011 10:02:17 AM

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11 - The X Window System
or by changing the value of 
machdep.allowaperture
to the appropriate non-zero value in 
/etc/
sysctl.conf
for your platform, and rebooting the machine (this sysctl cannot be changed after boot 
has been completed for security reasons). There are security implications to this, so do not do this if you 
do not need it. 
11.2.1 - alpha
/usr/X11R6/README
 for alpha. 
Set 
machdep.allowaperture=1
in 
/etc/sysctl.conf
. 
The TGA and some VGA cards are supported. No further configuration should be needed. 
11.2.2 - amd64
/usr/X11R6/README
 for amd64. 
Set 
machdep.allowaperture=2
in 
/etc/sysctl.conf
. 
For the vast majority of users, X on amd64 auto-configures successfully, so no further configuration is 
needed. IF further configuration is needed, use the 
X -configure
 process 
below
.