Automatic configuration was introduced with XFree86 4.4.0 which makes it possible to start XFree86 without first creating a configuration file. This has been further improved in subsequent releases. If you experienced any problems with automatic configuration in a previous release, it is worth trying it again with this release.
While the initial automatic configuration support was originally targeted just for Linux and the FreeBSD variants, as of 4.5.0 it also includes Solaris, NetBSD and OpenBSD support. Full support for automatic configuration is planned for other platforms in future releases.
If you are running Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, or Solaris, try Auto Configuration by running:
XFree86 -autoconfig
If you want to customise some things afterwards, you can cut and paste the
automatically generated configuration from the
/var/log/XFree86.0.log file into an XF86Config file and make
your customisations there.
If you need to customise some parts of the configuration while leaving others
to be automatically detected, you can combine a partial static configuration
with the automatically detected one by running:
XFree86 -appendauto
If you are using a platform that is not currently supported, then you must try
one of the older methods for getting started like "xf86cfg", which is
our graphical configuration tool.
It also has a text mode interface that an be used to create an initial
configuration file and customise existing configurations.
After that, you can use XFree86 server's ability to create a starting configuration file. To do so you must login as root, and run:
XFree86 -configure
and then follow the instructions.
Finally, if all else fails, the trusty old standby text-based tool
"xf86config" can also be used for generating X server config files.
Hopefully, at least one, and perhaps all of these various configuration options will give you a reasonable starting point for a suitable configuration file but we think that with the automatic mechanism you will probably not need any.
If you would like to customise the configuration file, see the XF86Config manual page. You should also check the driver-specific manual pages and the related documentation, which is found at tables below.
Before downloading any of the binary distributions for this release, read through the Installation Document as it can point out which particular binary you should download.
The next section describes what is new in the latest version (4.8.0) compared with the previous full release (4.7.0).