hey, don't sweat it! i've just been getting up to speed on this after playing with x for a few years but not using it properly.
here's how I do things (so I'm open to flames too!) I used to use the startx... scripts, but don't bother, it's actually really easy to do it without. 1. dead easy way: download "morten's cygwin x launcher" (as I write this, it's top link on "www.cygwin.com - software section) this is a great way to learn and try out all the options and window managers for X. Click a few check boxes, click "Go" and try out X 2. another easy way: once you've played with Morten's launcher, you should be a bit more happy with some of the options available, so now you can start to work with X via xinit and some command line params to fine tune how you run it. so, install openbox (and a few other windows managers along with your xorg stuff, e.g. fvwm, twm etc.) then create a file in your $HOME called ".xinitrc" in it, put these two lines: - - - - - 8< - - - - #!/bin/bash openbox - - - - - - - - - - dunno if line 1 is needed, but I always force scripts to be bash-able. after this, you can simply type "xinit" to run x a better startup is something like: nohup >/tmp/xinit.log </dev/null 2>&1 xinit -- :0 -nodecoration -clipboard & basically, everything after the "--" are args that get passed to X (or Xwin, as that is sym-linked to Xwin, or Xwin_GL if you have a GL) the "nohup" means "if my shell dies, don't die yourself" you can remove "-nodecoration" if you want to have windows borders, but I tend to run X on a 2nd monitor and don't want the windows border. "-clipboard" allows copy and paste between windows and X. I'd rather have a "-noclipboard" option personally, as I can't think of a reason to NOT have it enabled. I've also install xfce4 as a full desktop. It's nice, and I did it out of curiosity. If you just want to play, get fvwm or openbox and mess around with the window manager, before expanding. mark - - - some of my own setup from "cygcheck -c -d" : fvwm 2.4.7-3 openbox 0.99.1-4 X-start-menu-icons 1.0.3-2 X-startup-scripts 1.0.10-2 xorg-x11-base 6.8.1.0-1 xorg-x11-bin 6.8.1.0-2 xorg-x11-bin-dlls 6.8.1.0-1 xorg-x11-bin-lndir 6.8.1.0-1 xorg-x11-devel 6.8.1.0-1 xorg-x11-etc 6.8.1.0-1 xorg-x11-f100 6.8.1.0-3 xorg-x11-fcyr 6.8.1.0-2 xorg-x11-fenc 6.8.1.0-2 xorg-x11-fnts 6.8.1.0-3 xorg-x11-fscl 6.8.1.0-2 xorg-x11-fsrv 6.8.1.0-1 xorg-x11-libs-data 6.8.1.0-1 xorg-x11-man-pages 6.8.1.0-1 xorg-x11-man-pages-html 6.8.1.0-1 xorg-x11-nest 6.8.1.0-1 xorg-x11-vfb 6.8.1.0-1 xorg-x11-xwin 6.8.1.0-5 xorg-x11-xwin-gl 6.8.1.0-5 this ain't a complete list, but is some of the x related stuff. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brock Denson Sent: 08 December 2004 18:34 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: starting cygwinx sorry about the newbie question. i can feel the flames coming... anyway, i have downloaded and installed cygwin and the xfree libraries via setup as per the users guide on the website. i can not find the startwin.bat or .sh files nor is the /etc/X11/xinit file present. can someone tell me where i can find these files and how to get an xterm window started. thanks, brock