There are many reasons why X Windows is a flawed concept. XFree86, whilst a very good project with a fair amount of good quality code, doesn't measure up to a well made commercial X server. This isn't really related to the ability of the developers, instead the problem with the XFree86 is they are trying to be too much to too many. They support an astounding number of video cards, and despite their legacy name they've support a number of platforms for a while now.

Now SGI are supposed to have a truly sublime X server for their Irix OS, (I'll have to wait until someone offers me access to one of their workstations to find out I guess). They're able to do this because they are developing for one OS and for the handful of graphics systems they have in their machines. This means you get an optimised graphics setup and not a generic one.

Anyway, I'm running XFree86 right now. It's not the greatest X server on the planet but in the general equation of my needs right now, it's good enough. The problem however is that I run FreeBSD and therefore have to do all my setup manually. To make matters worse I got careless upgrading to -CURRENT and I no longer have a working XFConfig file. This means I need to re create the file. Adding my USB Intellimouse Optical was a piece of cake, wheels and extra buttons an' all. However my one stumbling block is something so simple that it's stupid. I don't know my monitor's refresh rates. I have the manual with them in, it's just tucked away somewhere safe. Once I downloaded a different manual which whilst not so good did help. I even know my default/best settings (60 Horiz 75 Vert). Even though it's a TFT screen, a Mitac 15EX6 in fact, it seems to work best with a nice healthy range in XFConfig. I just wish I could find them again.