Edit /etc/ld.so.conf and add /usr/X11R6/lib. Run ldconfig Add /usr/X11R6/bin to your PATH environment variable in .bash_profile. The statement should look something like PATH=$PATH:/usr/X11R6/bin and be placed before the export PATH statement. Expand the PKG_CONFIG_PATH so that other packages can find XFree86 libraries. Add the following line to .bash_profile for root user: export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/X11R6/lib/pkgconfig Run source ~/.bash_profile Set up your mouse: ln -s psaux /dev/mouse Adjust the symbolic link as necessary for other types of mice. For instance, a serial mouse on the first serial port would be linked to ttyS1. Create the XF86Config file with cd ~ XFree86 -configure The screen will go black and you may hear some clicking of the monitor. This command will create a file, XF86Config.new in your home directory. Edit XF86Config.new to suit your system. The details of the file are located in the man page man XF86Config. Some things you may want to do are: Section "Files". Change the order of the font paths searched. You may want to put 100dpi fonts ahead of 75dpi fonts if your system normally comes up closer to 100 dots per inch. You may want to remove some font directories completely. Section "Monitor". Specify the VertRefresh and HorizSync values if the system does not automatically detect the monitor and its values. Section "InputDevice". You may want to change the keyboard autorepeat rate by adding Option "Autorepeat" "250 30". Section "Device". You may want to set some of the options available for your selected video driver. A description of the driver parameters is in the man page for your driver. Section "Screen". Add a DefaultDepth statement such as: DefaultDepth 16. In the SubSection for your default depth, add a modes line such as: Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768". The first mode listed will normally be the starting resolution. Test the system with XFree86 -xf86config ~/XF86Config.new You will only get a gray background with an X-shaped mouse cursor, but it confirms the system is working. Exit with Control-Alt-Backspace. If the system does not work, take a look at /var/log/XFree86.0.log to see what went wrong. Move the configuration file to its final location mv ~/XF86Config.new /etc/X11/XF86Config Create .xinitrc cat > ~/.xinitrc << "EOF" # Begin .xinitrc file xterm -g 80x40+0+0 & xclock -g 100x100-0+0 & twm EOF This provides an initial screen with an xterm and a clock that is managed by a simple window manager, Tab Window Manager. For details of twm, see the man page. When needed, XFree86 creates the directory /tmp/.ICE-unix if it does not exist. If this directory is not owned by root, XFree86 delays startup by a few seconds and also appends a warning to the logfile. This also affects startup of other applications. To improve performance, it is advisable to manually create the directory before XFree86 uses it. Add the file creation to /etc/sysconfig/createfiles that is sourced by the /etc/rc.d/init.d/cleanfs startup script. cat >> /etc/sysconfig/createfiles << "EOF" /tmp/.ICE-unix dir 1777 root root EOF Start X with startx to get basic functional X Window System.