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As Ubuntu 10.10 seems to neither detect my graphics card (Intel 82852/855GM) automatically nor use the corresponding Intel driver even after manually installing it, I am looking into manually configuring X (shouldn't I?). Where can I find the configuration files I need to edit?

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Even if you come up with a solution, don't forget to file a bug on Launchpad so that this hardware configuration can be made to work out of the box in future Ubuntu releases. – ændrük Sep 24 '10 at 2:14
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We deliberately don't load the intel driver on your hardware because it is too unstable. See this answer: askubuntu.com/questions/4658/… – RAOF Apr 29 '11 at 8:02
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4 Answers

up vote 27 down vote accepted

The xorg.conf does not exist by default any more. You CAN create one though.

Boot into recovery mode and select Root Shell. Then run:

X -configure

Then:

cp /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Reboot and you can edit the new Xorg.conf.

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But if it does not exist, should I really create it? Where are X settings stored by default? Maybe It's better to use the way which is meant to be an actual standard? – Ivan Sep 24 '10 at 1:55
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This is the correct way. It is just that X now auto-detects the settings, and a xorg.conf is not mandatory. If you know what you want to edit, by all means create one. – NightwishFan Sep 24 '10 at 2:10
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There is absolutely no reason to reboot even once. Just open terminal, write sudo X -configure; sudo cp ... and sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart (assuming Ubuntu, not KUbuntu). – Olli Mar 19 '11 at 13:31
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@Olli; it doesn't work, you need the X server to be inactive for X -configure to run – Josh G Jun 5 '11 at 0:46
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Josh G: If you are already running X, just say X :1 -configure. You have to open the X server on its own display port; if you already have an X server running, the default port of :0 will fail, so you have to specify display :x (where x is the first available display; in most cases 1). – cookiecaper Mar 21 at 18:45
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up vote 4 down vote

Usually, you don't need the xorg.conf any more.

If you need to configure some devices anyway, you can do so by placing a file in the /usr/lib/X11/xorg.conf.d/ (Ubuntu 10.04) or /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/ (since Ubuntu 10.10). There are some files in this directory already.

You can find more information on xorg.conf.d (in german, but the configuration files are in english of course). What is important is that the filenames should start with a two-digit number greater than 10.

Another guide - in english - is on x org archive. It's still using /usr/lib but it's good.

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Good point and the rigth way to go. The Arch Wiki also has more on this too (wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xorg#Display_Size_and_DPI) though their X server is configured to use /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ which makes more sense to me. – Todd Partridge 'Gen2ly' Dec 16 '11 at 20:35
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up vote 4 down vote

The configurations files are at /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d

They are:

10-evdev.conf

11-evdev-quirks.conf

50-vmmouse.conf

50-wacom.conf

51-synaptics-quirks.conf

Check the current manual.

If you create a xorg.conf file the configurations of this file will prevail.
Check 50-synaptics.conf options not working and the answer that Takkat gave.

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up vote 0 down vote

Yeah for most free graphics drivers, recent releases of Ubuntu haven't required a xorg.conf file. You can generate one pretty easily though:

sudo Xorg -configure
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