[PLUG] X, xorg.conf.d, etc.

[Keith Lofstrom]

--- The ask ---

The X window graphics system is evolving, the man pages and 
howtos and tutorials I can find are not keeping up.  Where are
some recent well written introductions to X, debugging, etc?

--- explanation ---

* Irrelevant gripe, why I cannot "just google it":

Google (and DuckDuckGo) no longer generate de-novo query 
directed search results, but seem to pick a precomputed set from
prior similar (in their opinion) searches, resulting in a crapton
of irrelevance, with filtering words ignored.  Hence, back to 
the preGoogle "human search engine".

* I've got three X problems to debug:

0) I want to increase the debugging level of the Xorg.0.log file.
While the file contains a lot of useless crap (the modeline list
over and over again), it does not provide vital stuff for debug
(like which modeline it is actually using).

1) The intel driver /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/intel_drv.so 
seems to add about 5% to the monitor EDID pixel clock rate (I 
suspect it is an M to Mi confusion).  I want to tell it to use
one of the slower clock options it lists in the (repeated) 
modeline list. 

1a) This is complicated on one machine because I occasionally
switch on and off a second monitor, though that does not seem
to be directly correlated to my current problems - it does make
kluging more complicated.

2) Particular to one of the machines (with builtin intel HD 
graphics), when the display goes into timeout lock, and perhaps
other times, it generates a screen full of herringbone garbage
rather than the usual lockout message (the mouse pointer sprite
still works).  A crtl-alt-F5 followed by ctrl-alt-F1 restores a
readable lockout page, but my geekishness-resistant users think
that is stupid, and so do I.  Generating a bug report without
decent log data is difficult.

So - with some current documentation (do they still write that?)
of the current evolving X paradigm I can debug and generate usable
bug reports.  "The screen is messed up, trust me" will not work.
Suggestions?

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com