Quoting Harald Arnesen (harald@???):

> >> Manual Xorg configuration is so tedious, time consuming and error
> >> prone that requiring users to be capable of it is just crazy.
> > Au contraire: Even if you had nothing besides Xorg (or previously
> > XFree86) itself, in almost all cases you could just do 'Xorg -configure
> >> /etc/X11/Xorg.conf' and nothing else. However, pretty nearly all
> > distributions provided even-easier X configurator tools.
>
> When? Not when I started using Linux.

At the very latest by RHL7, which was released in 1994. Red Hat's
easy/GUI X configuration tool was called Xconfigurator.[1] I vaguely
recall that SUSE and Debian, among many others, had various other ones
with a variety of names.

(This having been in the early/mid 1990s, it was of course for XFree86,
not Xorg.)

If you started using Linux in 1991-1993, then, sure, distributions then
did _not_ include even-easier X configurator tools, and you would have a
very peculiar yet technically valid edge-case point, for which, here,
have a cookie. ;-> But then, if you are indeed as old an old-timer as I
am, I'm extremely surprised you are not fully aware of when this changed.

But, anyway: If you wish to go install a bunch of ancient Linux distros
and report back, have fun!


[1] See, e.g.,
ftp://www-uxsup.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/doc/redhat/redhat7/rhl-aig-en-7.0/s1-guimode-xconf.html