Re: [ProgSoc] XFree86 video problems

[Peter Lees <peter@nospam.yseda.com.au>]

On Sun, 24 May 1998 01:52:27 PDT chibagu@nospam.hotmail.com (Patrick Kennedy)
wrote:

>hello all
>
>just made a venture into Linux, installing Slackware and various other
>bits including XFree86.
>
>I have a problem with the video configuration. I have an old IBM VGA
>monitor and a Tseng Labs ET4000 card, and when i start X (or XF86Setup)
>the screen temporarily swaps to some garbled blue screen and swaps back
>to the grey X screen witht he mouse cursor. From here i can't do
>anything, no keyboard and no mouse buttons work.
>
>I have all the "generic" drivers and screens in the XF86Config file.
>
>Using X -probeonly reveals that X is expecting a "screen" section for an
>"accel" driver....but the ET4000 doesn't require this, unlike the
>ET4000/W32...but this may be irrelevant or a totally different problem
>
>Firstly, how can i get out of this broke X session without rebooting?
>
>Next can anyone point me in the right direction? Is it the monitor, the
>video card, or is it the XF86Config file?
>
>thanks oh mighty Linux-heads


sounds like xdm isn't running.

in other words, the X-server is running OK, but you have no (client)
application
(such as a login manager) running. 

in /etc/inittab, make sure you have an emergency console set up, eg:

x1:6:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc.6
c6:6:respawn:/etc/getty tty6 VC console  

hopefully this will mean that ctl+alt+F6  will switch to a text mode
console
(ctl+alt+F1 to switch back) which will help you debug what's going on.

first step would be to try starting xdm from the command line.  on my
system,
/etc/rc.d/rc.6 has only one useful line:

  exec /usr/X11R6/bin/xdm -nodaemon -error /var/adm/Xerrors 

you can put in a -debug <level> switch to get more info.  it's probably a
configuration
error in the xdm config files (/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xdm)


see if that helps.


cheers


p

--
peter@nospam.yseda.com.au

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