Am I right in thinking there’s no way to set up the X window system for any kind of desktop these days - manually, from scratch?
No elf binary or script which begins a process to consolidate the video driver, monitor, keyb and mouse - right?
You don’t ask for a GUI at install time, tough!!!
Am I right in thinking there’s no way to set up the X window system for any kind of desktop these days - manually, from scratch?
For the most users, no xorg.conf is required. You can still configure manually post-install though.
Curse the 10minute edit rule. I missed the title typo casualty/casuality
gnashing of teeth! how did I miss the Xorg elf ?
ok, trouble is it doesn’t provide a probed resolution file which Sax2 would have so unless one has a normal install with a conf file to see what it really should have…!
Try checking out xrandr
ok, trouble is it doesn’t provide a probed resolution file which Sax2 would have so unless one has a normal install with a conf file to see what it really should have…!
The /var/log/Xorg.0.log file will tell you quite a bit about the results of graphics card and monitor probing at startup, and xrandr (as gogalthorp mentioned) will summarise your available display modes.
If you’re trying to set a preferred resolution, then have aread of this thread.
yes, ok guys. 
It was a case of my somewhat cryptic "You don’t ask for a GUI at install time, tough!!! " alluding to a pure text only minimal install, and then adding the X and gui stuff after.
…alluding to a pure text only minimal install, and then adding the X and gui stuff after.
The user is given a choice about this at the ‘Desktop Selection’ window. For a server environment (for example), you can choose ‘Minimal Server Selection (Text Mode)’.
The Perfect Server - OpenSUSE 11.3 x86_64 [ISPConfig 3] | HowtoForge - Linux Howtos and Tutorials
Then YaST allows you to add the required GUI Desktop patterns later.