NAME
xset - user preference utility for X

SYNOPSIS
xset [-display display] [-b] [b on/off] [b [volume [pitch
[duration]]] [[-]bc] [-c] [c on/off] [c [volume]] [[-+]fp[-
+=] path[,path[,...]]] [fp default] [fp rehash] [[-]led
[integer]] [led on/off] [m[ouse] [accel_mult[/accel_div]
[threshold]]] [m[ouse] default] [p pixel color] [[-]r [key-
code]] [r on/off] [s [length [period]]] [s blank/noblank] [s
expose/noexpose] [s on/off] [s default] [s activate] [s
reset] [q]

DESCRIPTION
This program is used to set various user preference options
of the display.

OPTIONS
-display display
This option specifies the server to use; see X(1).

b The b option controls bell volume, pitch and dura-
tion. This option accepts up to three numerical
parameters, a preceding dash(-), or a ’on/off’ flag.
If no parameters are given, or the ’on’ flag is
used, the system defaults will be used. If the dash
or ’off’ are given, the bell will be turned off. If
only one numerical parameter is given, the bell
volume will be set to that value, as a percentage of
its maximum. Likewise, the second numerical parame-
ter specifies the bell pitch, in hertz, and the
third numerical parameter specifies the duration in
milliseconds. Note that not all hardware can vary
the bell characteristics. The X server will set the
characteristics of the bell as closely as it can to
the user’s specifications.

bc The bc option controls bug compatibility mode in the
server, if possible; a preceding dash(-) disables
the mode, otherwise the mode is enabled. Various
pre-R4 clients pass illegal values in some protocol
requests, and pre-R4 servers did not correctly gen-
erate errors in these cases. Such clients, when run
against an R4 server, will terminate abnormally or
otherwise fail to operate correctly. Bug compati-
bility mode explicitly reintroduces certain bugs
into the X server, so that many such clients can
still be run. This mode should be used with care;
new application development should be done with this
mode disabled. The server must support the MIT-
SUNDRY-NONSTANDARD protocol extension in order for
this option to work.

c The c option controls key click. This option can
take an optional value, a preceding dash(-), or an
’on/off’ flag. If no parameter or the ’on’ flag is
given, the system defaults will be used. If the dash
or ’off’ flag is used, keyclick will be disabled.
If a value from 0 to 100 is given, it is used to
indicate volume, as a percentage of the maximum.
The X server will set the volume to the nearest
value that the hardware can support.

fp= path,...
The fp= sets the font path to the entries given in
the path argument. The entries are interpreted by
the server, not by the client. Typically they are
directory names or font server names, but the
interpretation is server-dependent.

fp default
The default argument causes the font path to be
reset to the server’s default.

fp rehash
The rehash argument resets the font path to its
current value, causing the server to reread the font
databases in the current font path. This is gen-
erally only used when adding new fonts to a font
directory (after running mkfontdir to recreate the
font database).

-fp or fp-
The -fp and fp- options remove elements from the
current font path. They must be followed by a
comma-separated list of entries.

+fp or fp+
This +fp and fp+ options prepend and append elements
to the current font path, respectively. They must
be followed by a comma-separated list of entries.

led The led option controls the keyboard LEDs. This
controls the turning on or off of one or all of the
LEDs. It accepts an optional integer, a preceding
dash(-) or an ’on/off’ flag. If no parameter or the
’on’ flag is given, all LEDs are turned on. If a
preceding dash or the flag ’off’ is given, all LEDs
are turned off. If a value between 1 and 32 is
given, that LED will be turned on or off depending
on the existence of a preceding dash. A common LED
which can be controlled is the "Caps Lock" LED.
"xset led 3" would turn led #3 on. "xset -led
3" would turn it off. The particular LED values
may refer to different LEDs on different hardware.

m The m option controls the mouse parameters. The
parameters for the mouse are ‘acceleration’ and
‘threshold’. The acceleration can be specified as
an integer, or as a simple fraction. The mouse, or
whatever pointer the machine is connected to, will
go ‘acceleration’ times as fast when it travels more
than ‘threshold’ pixels in a short time. This way,
the mouse can be used for precise alignment when it
is moved slowly, yet it can be set to travel across
the screen in a flick of the wrist when desired.
One or both parameters for the m option can be omit-
ted, but if only one is given, it will be inter-
preted as the acceleration. If no parameters or the
flag ’default’ is used, the system defaults will be
set.

p The p option controls pixel color values. The
parameters are the color map entry number in
decimal, and a color specification. The root
background colors may be changed on some servers by
altering the entries for BlackPixel and WhitePixel.
Although these are often 0 and 1, they need not be.
Also, a server may choose to allocate those colors
privately, in which case an error will be generated.
The map entry must not be a read-only color, or an
error will result.

r The r option controls the autorepeat. If a preced-
ing dash or the ’off’ flag is used, autorepeat will
be disabled. If no parameters or the ’on’ flag is
used, autorepeat will be enabled. If a specific
keycode is specified as a parameter, autorepeat for
that keycode is enabled or disabled.

s The s option lets you set the screen saver parame-
ters. This option accepts up to two numerical
parameters, a ’blank/noblank’ flag, an
’expose/noexpose’ flag, an ’on/off’ flag, an
’activate/reset’ flag, or the ’default’ flag. If no
parameters or the ’default’ flag is used, the system
will be set to its default screen saver characteris-
tics. The ’on/off’ flags simply turn the screen
saver functions on or off. The ’activate’ flag
forces activation of screen saver even if the screen
saver had been turned off. The ’reset’ flag forces
deactivation of screen saver if it is active. The
’blank’ flag sets the preference to blank the video
(if the hardware can do so) rather than display a
background pattern, while ’noblank’ sets the prefer-
ence to display a pattern rather than blank the
video. The ’expose’ flag sets the preference to
allow window exposures (the server can freely dis-
card window contents), while ’noexpose’ sets the
preference to disable screen saver unless the server
can regenerate the screens without causing exposure
events. The length and period parameters for the
screen saver function determines how long the server
must be inactive for screen saving to activate, and
the period to change the background pattern to avoid
burn in. The arguments are specified in seconds.
If only one numerical parameter is given, it will be
used for the length.

q The q option gives you information on the current
settings.

These settings will be reset to default values when you log
out.

Note that not all X implementations are guaranteed to honor
all of these options.

SEE ALSO
X(1), Xserver(1), xmodmap(1), xrdb(1), xsetroot(1)

AUTHOR
Bob Scheifler, MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
David Krikorian, MIT Project Athena (X11 version)