963: X11
| X11 |
 Title text: Thomas Jefferson thought that every law and every constitution should be torn down and rewritten from scratch every nineteen years--which means X is overdue. |
Explanation
X11 is: The X window system (commonly X Window System or X11, based on its current major version being 11) is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and rich input device capability for networked computers. X11 is usually implemented in Linux operating systems.
Xorg is a display server: X.Org Server (commonly abbreviated to Xorg Server, XServer or just Xorg) refers to the X server release packages stewarded by the X.Org Foundation, which is hosted by http://freedesktop.org, and provides an interface to the standard X Window releases for the use of the free and open source software community.
Every aspect of Xorg can be modified in numerous ways, all the way down to tiny behaviors such as the default window size and window-border snapping. All of these settings can be found in the xorg.conf file, a massive file with hundreds upon thousands of individual settings that have accumulated over the lifetime of the Xorg project. The full documentation for xorg.conf contains all the settings contained within the file. When a problem arises in the graphical portion of a desktop using the X server, the solution is often to edit the xorg.conf file. The soul-crushing prospect of having to open and look up the correct parameter out of thousands that is causing issues is enough to destroy a person's satisfaction with their life.
The Wayland project aims to replace X11 and not include any of the cruft that built up over the decades.
Transcript
- [The comic is a graph, with the x axis labelled "Time since I last had to open Xorg.conf" and the y axis labelled "General satisfaction with how my life is going". A curve starting at (0,0) snakes toward the upper right of the graph.]
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Come on Randall, it's not that hard, it's only 273 flags that you have to memorize. A child could do that. Davidy²²[talk] 09:00, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
- I think the comics might be about the fact that modern-day X.Org doesn't need xorg.conf at all... well, usually (i.e. almost always you can get with autodetection and without xorg.conf at all) --JakubNarebski (talk) 20:57, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
Good grief finding the actual Jefferson quote was hard. So many people saying things about the quotation without actually linking to the quotation. It took a bit of digging, Wikiquote has a link to what I think would have been the full text of the letter, but UVa must have switched CMS' so now all their links are different and you just get redirected to the front page of University of Virginia's Library. So much for permalinks. With a little bit more digging I found the full text published online by the University of Chicago. The text is thick, as should be expected of 18th century writing, but if you squint hard enough at a particular paragraph and twist the words a little you can come up with the sentiment that Randall refers to in the title text. lcarsos_a (talk) 20:17, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
- Did you not think of using the Wayback Machine? The UVa page you were looking for is here. NealCruco (talk) 02:44, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
Personally I like having the options 173.245.54.158 00:38, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
I think the explanation about how X works is wrong. But because of the unfortunate choices of the original X designers, I do not think it can become more accurate without also becoming more confusing. In particular, when dealing with X, server and client always mean the opposite of what you would expect. Pesthouse (talk) 21:09, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
Time IS on the x axis. Why does it claim it not to be? 108.162.221.50 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
Quite probably my favorite part of the xorg.conf manpage:
VIDEOADAPTOR SECTION
Nobody wants to say how this works. Maybe nobody knows ...
Zmatt (talk) 04:27, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
How what? I still don't get it. Is it because I use Mac? StillNotOriginal 01:51, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
It's been over 7 years since this comic was posted. I did my first xorg.conf edit this week - and now I get the joke... 108.162.219.16 13:24, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
Been a few years since I started using Linux, hoped for the best, and ended up having to edit xorg.conf. Guess it's unavoidable,, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ sending mental support to anyone who has to mess with X11! 162.158.102.59 09:36, 8 October 2023 (UTC)
