during my daily skim through of Debian Planet I noticed this:
http://blog.zugschlus.de/archives/577-A-thousand-things-I-never-wanted-to-know-about-X.html
"In most basic cases, the latest X server does not need a
configuration file any more. It autodetects your hardware and chooses
whatever modes it finds optimal. It does a pretty decent job in doing
so. If one wants to influence how the X system comes up, once can
always write an Xorg.conf file - the configfileless server even
writes the “virtual config file” it uses to the log as a starting
point.
Additionally, almost everything regarding screen layout can be
reconfigured at run time using the xrandr binary from a command line.
Even a hardware change (such a new monitor plugged into the powered
on notebook) is correctly detected. Cute. This allows me to
reconfigure my notebook depending on where it currently is and which
external monitor (or projector) is connected."
This new xserver stuff is currently in Debian experimental but will
no doubt move into sid one of these days. Be nice not to have to
keep old copies of xorg.conf 'just in case' a distro upgrade breaks
X.
--
John Lewis
Debian (Sid) with the GeneWeb genealogy package
