Web Analytics
Privacy Policy Cookie Policy Terms and Conditions X11-big-cursor MINIHOWTO: How to do it Next Previous Contents

3. How to do it

Follow the steps detailed below. If you don't want to get and compile the bdfresize package yourself, you can skip to step 3 and download a magnified font instead of creating it.

  1. get cursor.bdf, the source of the cursor font, from some X distribution, e. g. from ftp://ftp.x.org/pub/R6.3/xc/fonts/bdf/misc/cursor.bdf (if you don't find it there try an archie search or get it from my copy).
  2. get, compile and install the bdfresize package from ftp://ftp.cs.titech.ac.jp/X11/contrib/Local/bdfresize-1.4.tar.Z (or from my copy):
         zcat bdfresize-1.4.tar.Z  | tar xf -
         cd bdfresize-1.4
         xmkmf
         make
         
    
    On Linux you probably have to use:
         make CCOPTIONS='-include /usr/include/bsd/bsd.h' clean all
         
    
  3. create a directory and install a magnified cursor font in it (magnification factor 2 in this example):
         mkdir $HOME/fonts
         bdfresize -f 2 cursor.bdf | bdftopcf >$HOME/fonts/cursor2.pcf
         mkfontdir $HOME/fonts
         
    
    I have prepared some cursor fonts with the following magnification factors: 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 16. You can download one of them an copy it to $HOME/fonts if you don't want to use bdfresize.
  4. modify your .xinitrc or .xsession file: before any X client (that uses cursors) is started the following commands must be executed:
         xset +fp $HOME/fonts
         xsetroot -cursor_name X_cursor
         
    
  5. leave your X session and restart.

That's it—now all mouse cursors should have doubled in size.


Next Previous Contents