XSET(1)

✨ xset ✨ 🎀

💖 NAME 💖

okay so xset is the user preference utility for X 🌸. it's how you tweak your display settings, bestie.

🧾 SYNOPSIS 🧾

xset [-display display]
[-b] [b {on|off}] [b [volume [pitch [duration]]]]
[-bc] [bc]
[-c] [c {on|off}] [c [volume]]
[+dpms] [-dpms]
     [dpms standby [ suspend [ off]]]
     [dpms force {standby|suspend|off|on}]
[fp=pathlist] [-fp=pathlist] [+fp=pathlist] [fp-pathlist] [fp+pathlist]
[fp default] [fp rehash]
[-led [integer|named indicator]] [led [integer|named indicator]]
[led {on|off}]
[mouse [accel_mult[/accel_div] [threshold]]] [mouse default]
[p pixel color]
[-r [keycode]]  [r [keycode]] [r {on|off}] [r rate delay [rate]]
[s [length [period]]] [s {blank|noblank}]
[s {expose|noexpose}] [s {on|off}] [s default] [s activate] [s reset]
[q]
[-version]

🌈 DESCRIPTION 🌈

ngl this one is so iconic 💅. xset is the program you use to set all kinds of user preference options for your display. main character energy, fr fr ✨🔥

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that's the whole page, so I'm done for now. 🫶💜

✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -display display 🖥️ — okay so this one picks which X server you want to talk to. Check out X(7) for the full tea on that 💅
• b 🔔 — this is your bell control babe! It takes up to three numbers, a dash -, or an on/off flag. No numbers or on? You get the system defaults ✨ A dash or off mutes the bell completely 🤫 One number sets the volume as a percentage of the max. The second number is the pitch in hertz, and the third is the duration in milliseconds 🎶 Heads up, not all hardware can change the bell, but the X server will get as close to your specs as it possibly can 🫶
• bc 🕰️ — this toggles bug compatibility mode in the server, if the server can do it. Put a dash - in front to turn it off, otherwise it switches on. So here's the thing: some older pre-R4 clients send illegal values in certain protocol requests, and pre-R4 servers didn't catch those errors properly 💀 Those clients will crash or just not work right with an R4 server. Bug compatibility mode puts those old bugs back into the X server so those clients can still run 😭 Use it with caution though, and new app development should always be done with this mode turned off 🚫 Also, the server has to support the MIT-SUNDRY-NONSTANDARD protocol extension for this to work.
• c 🎹 — this one controls key click, the little sound your keyboard makes when you type ⌨️ It can take an optional value, a dash -, or an on/off flag. No parameter or on? System defaults, bestie ✨ A dash or off turns keyclick off completely. A value from 0 to 100 sets the volume as a percentage of the max, and the X server will pick the closest level the hardware can handle 🔊
• -dpms 😴 — this disables Display Power Management Signaling (DPMS) features. No sleepy screen for you 🙅‍♀️
• +dpms ⚡ — this enables Display Power Management Signaling (DPMS) features. Your screen can finally nap and wake up like a pro 💜
• dpms flags... 🌙 — this lets you set the DPMS parameters. You can give it up to three numerical values, or the force flag followed by a DPMS state. force makes the server switch to that DPMS state right now, no questions asked 💅 The state can be standby, suspend, off, or on. When you pass numbers, they set how many seconds of inactivity go by before each mode kicks in. The first number is for standby, the second is for suspend, and the third is for off 🕒 Setting any of these will automatically turn DPMS on for you. And a value of zero means that particular mode is disabled 🚫
• fp= path,... 📂 — this sets the font path to whatever entries you list in the path argument. The server reads these entries, not the client. Usually they're directory names or font server names, but how they're interpreted depends on the server 🧚
• fp default 🔄 — this resets the font path back to the server's default. Fresh start, no drama ✨
• fp rehash 🔁 — this sets the font path to its current value again, which makes the server reread the font databases in the current font path. This is mostly used after you've added new fonts to a font directory (and run mkfontdir to rebuild the font database) 🌸
• -fp or fp- 🗑️ — these remove elements from the current font path. Each one has to be followed by a comma-separated list of entries.
• +fp or fp+ ➕ — these prepend and append elements to the current font path, respectively. Same deal, they need a comma-separated list of entries after them 🫶
• led 💡 — this controls the keyboard LEDs, so you can turn one or all of them on or off. It takes an optional integer, a dash -, or an on/off flag. No parameter or on? All LEDs light up ✨ A dash or off turns all of them off. A value between 1 and 32 targets just that one LED, and whether it turns on or off depends on whether there's a dash in front. So xset led 3 would turn LED #3 on, and xset -led 3 would turn it off 💖 Heads up, the LED numbers might point to different LEDs on different hardware, so keep that in mind. If the X server supports the XKEYBOARD (XKB) extension, you can also refer to LEDs by their XKB indicator name. Just use the named keyword followed by the indicator name. For example, to turn on the Scroll Lock LED:

xset led named "Scroll Lock"

• mouse (or just m) 🖱️ — this controls your mouse parameters. It applies to most pointing devices, not just mice, so don't feel left out, trackpads 🫶 The two parameters are acceleration and threshold. Acceleration can be an integer or a simple fraction, and threshold is just an integer. The setting gets applied to every connected pointing device. If you need settings for one specific device, xinput(1) is the move 🎯

Here's how the pointer behaves by default: it goes acceleration times as fast when the device moves more than threshold mickeys (basically would-be pixels) in 10 ms, and there's a small transition range included too 🌈 This means the pointer is precise when you move slowly, so you can line things up perfectly, but you can also flick it across the whole screen when you want to ✨ You can leave out one or both parameters, but if you only give one, it gets treated as the acceleration. No parameters or the default flag will set the system defaults.

If threshold is given and set to 0, then acceleration gets used in the exponent of a more natural, continuous formula 🧮 You get precise control for slow motion, big reach for fast motion, and a smooth transition in between. The recommended acceleration value here is 3/2 to 3, though it isn't limited to that range.

In the X.org X Server 1.6 and above, everything I just described is tied to the default profile. There are other profiles (functions that work out pointer acceleration from device velocity) and extra settings, so this description might not match those non-default cases 🙈 In the X.org Server 1.7, these are available as input device properties (see xinput).

• p 🎨 — this controls pixel color values. The parameters are the color map entry number in decimal, plus a color specification. On some servers you can change the root background colors by changing the BlackPixel and WhitePixel entries. Those are often 0 and 1, but they don't have to be 👀 Also, a server might decide to allocate those colors privately, and if that happens you'll get an error. And if the map entry is a read-only color, you'll get an error too, so keep an eye out 🚫
• r ⌨️ — this controls autorepeat, the feature where a held key keeps typing on its own. -r or r off disables autorepeat, while r or r on enables it 🔁 If you follow the -r or r option with an integer keycode between 0 and 255, you can disable or enable autorepeat for just that key. This only works if it makes sense for that particular keycode, and keycodes below 8 usually aren't valid for this command. Example: xset -r 10 will disable autorepeat for the "1" key on the top row of an IBM PC keyboard 💅

If the server supports the XFree86-Misc extension or the XKB extension, you can use a rate parameter, followed by zero, one, or two numeric values ⏱️ The first number is the delay before autorepeat kicks in, and the second is the repeat rate. When the server supports XKB, the delay is in milliseconds before autorepeat starts, and the rate is how many repeats happen per second. If you leave out the rate or delay, it gets set to the default value.

• s 🌟 — this lets you set the screen saver parameters. It takes up to two numerical parameters, plus a blank/noblank flag, an expose/noexpose flag, an on/off flag, an activate/reset flag, or the default flag. No parameters or default puts the screen saver back to its default characteristics ✨ The on/off flags simply switch the screen saver functions on or off. activate forces the screen saver to kick in even if it had been turned off, and reset forces it to deactivate if it's currently running 🫧 The blank flag tells it to blank the video (if the hardware can do that) instead of showing a background pattern, and noblank does the opposite and shows a pattern instead. The expose flag lets window exposures happen (the server can freely discard window contents), while noexpose disables the screen saver unless the server can regenerate the screens without causing exposure events 🙈 The length and period parameters decide how long the server has to be inactive before screen saving starts, and how often the background pattern changes to avoid burn-in. Everything here is in seconds. If you only give one numerical parameter, it becomes the length 💖
• q 🔍 — this gives you information about the current settings. Spill the tea 🍵
• -version 🏷️ — this prints the program version and exits right away without doing anything else 👋

These settings get reset to their default values when you log out, so don't panic if things change back 🥹 And just a heads up, not all X implementations are guaranteed to honor every single one of these options 💀

💖 SEE ALSO 💖

X(7), Xserver(1), xmodmap(1), xrdb(1), xsetroot(1), xinput(1) 🦋

✨ AUTHOR ✨

okay so the squad behind this page is literally iconic 💅 Here's who made it:

• Bob Scheifler, MIT Laboratory for Computer Science 🎀
• David Krikorian, MIT Project Athena, the X11 version 🦋
• David Dawes and Joe Moss added the XFree86-Misc support ✨
• Mike A. Harris did the manpage updates, reach him at mharris@redhat.com 💌

the way these people built the foundations that this whole tool sits on 😭🫶

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X Version 11 🌈 xset 1.2.5 🌸 that's the version I'm working with, bestie, so if your copy says something different, double check before you trust me 🙈 Stay cute and go read the real thing whenever you need the exact details 💜✨