X Window System in Debian

How to start the X server

/etc/init.d/gdm start

/etc/init.d/gdm3 start

/etc/init.d/kdm start

Works if your X server is gdm, gdm3 or kdm; if yours is something else, just replace it.

How to restart the X server

Restart the X server (after switching to the console with Ctrl + Alt + F1) with the command

/etc/init.d/gdm restart

/etc/init.d/gdm3 restart

/etc/init.d/kdm restart

How to stop the X server

Stop/start the X server (after switching to the console with Ctrl + Alt + F1) with the command

/etc/init.d/gdm stop

/etc/init.d/gdm3 stop

/etc/init.d/kdm stop

If you do not know which X server you have, you can try

/etc/init.d/gdm stop || /etc/init.d/gdm3 stop || /etc/init.d/kdm stop || /etc/init.d/xdm stop || /etc/init.d/lightdm stop

If that did not help either, try the options from here

or from here.

How to switch from X to the console

Ctrl + Alt + F1

How to switch from the console to X

Alt + F7

History

X Window System is a windowing system that provides the standard tools and protocols for building a graphical user interface. It is used in UNIX-like operating systems.

X Window System provides the basic functions of a graphical environment: drawing and moving windows on the screen and interaction with input devices such as the mouse and the keyboard.

X Window System does not define the details of the user interface; that is the job of window managers, of which many have been written. For this reason the look of programs in an X Window System environment can differ greatly depending on the capabilities and settings of a particular window manager.

X Window System provides network transparency: graphical applications can run on another machine on the network while their interface is transmitted over the network and displayed on the local machine of the user.

In the context of X Window System the terms client and server have a meaning unusual for many users: the server is the local display of the user (the display server), and the client is the program that uses this display (it may run on a remote computer).

X Window System was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984.

As of February 2016 the protocol version is X11R7.7, which appeared in June 2012.

The X project is led by the X.Org Foundation. The reference implementation of the system is freely available under the MIT licence and similar licences.

X Window System is often called X11 or simply X (in Russian colloquial speech, «iksy»)

Article author: Andrei Olegovich