XDM and X Terminal mini-HOWTO

Kevin Taylor

kevin@northants.lug.org.uk

Revision History
Revision v0.05	14 November 2025	Revised by: kt
Added cross-references to other Howtos
Revision v0.04	6 November 2025	Revised by: kt
Updates after first public draft.
Revision v0.03	3 July 2025	Revised by: kt
Minor updates from first comments
Revision v0.02	28 June 2025	Revised by: kt
First SGML source draft from HTML source
Revision v0.01	27 June 2025	Revised by: kt
First HTML source draft

This document describes the basic ideas for using XDM to manage X terminals. It is not meant to be a comprehensive discussion of all the features of XDM, but a gentle introduction to what XDM can do for X terminals.

For a full discussion about the installation and configuration of X terminals, please refer to the 'Thin-client' HOWTO, from the Linux Documentation Project or the Linux Terminal Server Project (see Section 7).

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

1.1. Copyright Information
1.2. Disclaimer
1.3. New Versions
1.4. Credits
1.5. Feedback
1.6. To do

2. Basic Concepts

2.1. What is covered
2.2. About this document

3. XDM

3.1. What is XDM
3.2. What is an X terminal

4. Configuring XDM

4.1. Configuration Files
4.2. Configuring XDM to Manage X Servers
4.3. Configuring XDM to Receive Queries
4.4. Starting X
4.5. The Chooser Application

5. Advanced Configuration Options

5.1. Configuration Sets
5.2. X Resources

6. Common Configurations

6.1. Linux to Linux
6.2. Linux to Other Systems
6.3. Other Systems to Linux

7. Resources