Arch Linux

rupeshforu3

Member

Registered: 2023-01-06

Posts: 70

looking for latest documentation of X Windows System and WMs and DEs.

Hi I am Rupesh from India and I have brought a new Desktop PC with AMD Ryzen zen3 5500GT APU and Asus prime B450 MK2 motherboard. I installed Linux Operating System with X Windows System and popular desktop environments and it is working fine.

Everything is working fine but I love to explore how Linux Operating System works including all its components like shell, utilities, SystemD, X Windows System etc.,.

So I searched for documentation for the above and I found nice books which teaches shell, utilities, SystemD etc., but unfortunately I found books related to X Windows System which are too old I mean they are published before 1993.

I love UNIX and Linux Operating Systems, X Windows System Philosophies.

So I installed all the available window managers and desktop environments available. I want to learn and experiment X Windows System and window managers. But I can't find the documentation for it.

The following books are available from O'Reilly which are related to X Windows System. All these books are published before 1993 and stopped updating.

1) X Windows System User guide
2) X Windows System User guide Motif edition
3) X Windows System User guide Open Look edition
4) X Windows System Administrator guide
5) Xlib reference manual
6) Xlib programming manual
7) Xview programming manual
8) Xview reference manual
9) X toolkit Intrinsics programming manual
Etc.,

These books discuss X Windows System, Motif in depth but the technology improved a lot and new window managers and desktop environments came.

The tldp documentation website have some books related to X Windows System but unfortunately those books are too small less than 50 pages.

When I work with Linux I see some processes containing words like XDG, freedesktop and so I think freedesktop.org is currently maintaining X Windows System and its technology.

So I even searched documentation for XDG and free desktop but I can't find anything.

I want to learn basic things about how X Windows System works and how desktop environments like gnome, kde, xfce starts and how they work. I also want to know how window managers like awesome, openbox etc., work. I also want to know how to change the configuration files related twm etc.,.

Kindly try to suggest any pdf book or any printed book which discuss X Windows System including new technology like XDG.

Regards,
Rupesh.

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 60,894

Re: looking for latest documentation of X Windows System and WMs and DEs.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Catego … esktop.org has absolutely nothing to do with https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xorg
A lot of WMs implement the https://specifications.freedesktop.org/wm-spec/1.4/ which is an extension of the https://x.org/releases/X11R7.6/doc/xorg … icccm.html and generally a good resource for the X11 APIs, specifically XLib is https://tronche.com/gui/x/
Xlib internally uses xcb for a while, https://www.x.org/wiki/guide/xlib-and-xcb/

---

How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc