X setup/path advice, please (newbie)

["Barron F. Snyder" <barron f snyder mail ameritech com>]

Hi all,

One of the great things about Linux is that it is SOOO customizable!
One of the really confusing things to a newbie (this one at least) is that
Linux is so customizable!

In trying to sort out some path and config issues, I've run into confusion
and would like some advice from the Linux veterans out there. I seem to have
duplicate files in various places and want to know the optimal flow for
starting up X. If this is documented somewhere please let me know (and I'm
sorry for wasting bandwidth). I've looked and couldn't find it anywhere!

To start X, I type startx.
This is a shell script which reads info from xinitrc and xserverrc.
xintrc refers to some files: xresources and xmodmap.

What directories should these different files be in? With various copies on
my machine, I don't know which to modify and which to delete.

The path to my xinitrc file is currently "/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc".
The path to my xresources file is currently
"/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xdm/xinitrc".

Are these right? Is this the recommended way? Help!

All recommendations on these and any other related files and paths are
GREATLY appreciated!

Thanks,
Barron