@random_garbage said:
I'm not all that much of an old hand, but it makes me feel that way to see comments like this... It wasn't all that long ago that X11 on Linux meant XFree86, not X.org, and an invalid configuration meant no display. Back in the day, I spent my fair share of time tweaking XF86Config to get X working... Sure, this time around it was simply boot, install, run, but it wasn't always this easy... As asufffield points out, X11 predated Linux, and in the good old days of Unix, configuration meant editing text files, not running an "autoconfig" script...
This is pretty much what I meant. I've only had major problems with X config files on an old Debian machine and a system with an ATI chipset and nVidia video card that hated each other, but they stand out. Also, a lot of the X.org built-in guessing code is kinda new, and still needs tweaking sometimes on laptops and other edgy cases.
Note to all: Yes, I resurrected an old thread. I forgot to check the modification time, and I'm sorry.