X configuration search priority issues

kingbeowulf · 08-28-2011, 04:41 PM

I seem to have some issues in setting up the X.org configuration.

My interpretation was that anything in /etc/X11/ will override /usr/share/X11, but maybe I understood that wrong? Or is it just that /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d overrides /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d? What I observe is that anything in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d has priority.

There seems to be conflicting information after googling about this. The X.org docs seem to imply that /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d is searched LAST so that would give it priority. Others say that /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d is search first and so has lower priority. Acccording to

Quote:

In addition to the conf files found in /etc/X11 or $sysconfdir/X11 used
for local administration, we also reserve a system directory for vendor
and package usage. The simple search path is:

/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d
$datadir/X11/xorg.conf.d

Files from these directories will have the lowest config priority.

Either way, if /etc/X11/xorg.conf exists, than this file is supposed to override all others.

So you can understand my confusion. As I maintain the nvidia drivers at Slackbuilds.org, I want to place a default configuration so that basic users can have it all work automagically but at the same time to not have any custom configuration files overridden that were created by advanced users.

GazL · 08-29-2011, 06:20 AM

I can understand your confusion and share it. The xorg.conf man-page shows how ridiculously complicated it is, and still fails to fully explain what is happening.

After a brief flirtation with /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d, I went back to using a single /etc/X11/xorg.conf with a ServerLayout section to explicitly use individual sections so as not to have to worry about all this.

kingbeowulf · 08-29-2011, 01:54 PM

Well, that is what I do as well - a nice simple xorg.conf which explicitly sets up my dual monitor configuration.

The only reason this came up is that I maintain the nvidia slackbuilds on Slackbuilds.org. I wanted to set up a default device configuration since the 'nvidia' driver is not picked up automagically. After a discussion in the slackbuilds mailing list, an idea was to use /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-nvidia.conf thinking that /etc/X11/xorg.conf and /etc/x11/xorg.conf would override for anyone that has customized the configuration - that way updating the driver does not accidentally delete their customized files. The opposite is definitely true. Anything in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d overrides my configuration.

I'd like to figure out if I can get this to work, or redo the slackbuild so have the user copy 10-nvidia.conf over manually.