Re: Re: Troublesome install of X
<quote who="Brian Swale">
> Hi,
hi, i reccomend you send your posts to the list instead of just
to me. there is a chance i will not see your reply and others
may have differnet/better advice.
> I boot Linux from a floppy, and have to stop the machine so I can start
> Windows to do the essential daily things I need to do (such as write
> e-mails, write web-pages, do graphics work etc etc). I also share a room
> with the machine and there's no way I can sleep with that noise going
> all night <g>. So it sleeps at night when I do.
ok, i guess the next best thing is to use a rescue disk. do you
remember which partition your root (/) is on? the boot disk usually
doesn't provide a easy way to enter single user mode, but it
is possible using the rescue disk. boot the disk, when
the screen comes up with the 'boot:' prompt, i believe the
command is 'rescue root=/dev/XXXX single' where XXXX is the device
name for your root partition. if you don't know what it is, just
type in anything, and the system will crash if its wrong(it won't
hurt anything), but WHEN it crashes you should get info such as:
hda: hda1 hda2 <hda6 hda7>
etc.. that is the kernel detecting the various partitions on
each of the disk(s) on the system. in the format above, it
would be /dev/hda1 /dev/hda2 etc .. so if you don't know
the root partition the easiest way i think would be just to
do trial-and-error and try all o f them until you find one
that works. then follow the original instructions.
> a wrong refresh rate, then it was followed by a featureless blue screen
> about the same colour as the Windows Blue screen of Death but much
> smaller, with this motionless black X about 1.3rd the way in from the
> bottom right corner..
that is indication that the driver/hardware interaction
really messed up bad. i would reccomend preventing X from
starting up on boot and research more(by posting to the list
if needed) your hardware configuration. it is possible, or even
probable that you don't have all the needed software installed
to support your video card under Xfree.
> So I cut the power.
i would of done that too most likely :)
>
> And that's where things are now. Debian is no use to me in the state it
> is on the machine; that's why I asked if I should do a re-format and
> start from there with a fresh package install (Dselect?).
that won't change the fact that your video card is not functioning
with the current version/configuration of X. usually this is
a result in my experiece of an unsupported card, or attempting
to use the wrong driver on a card.
>
> If I do that and configure X again, how can I avoid the same frozen
> computer state 2nd time around?
you could do that, if you do, you can be sure X does not start
on boot again by removing any display managers:
apt-get remove xdm kdm gdm
most likely it is xdm which is loading on boot. remove that
and it will not anymore.
>
> I have heard of Lilo, but know nothing about it.
since your using a boot disk, my original suggestion won't
work..
>
> I can not risk losing 3 years work on the Windows partitions, that's why
> I wondered about doing a total backup..
you should always have a backup. especially if you are not
completely confident in what your doing.
my first linux install back in 96 i ended up wiping out my
entire disk on accident. i did that at least 1 or 2 more times
in the months that followed as i learned. and ive learned a lot
the past 6 years!
another option, though it is more expensive, is to purchase a
commercial X server. I would reccomend Accelerated X. it was
how i first got X up and going back in 1996 or 1997. I was never
able to configure Xfree86, so i got that, and it worked great.
it is not cheap, about $100. but it is easy to use and supports
an unholy amount of videocards. though yours still may not
be supported, i have no idea what card you have. if you do
purchase AcceleratedX i would reccomend you get the normal
6.0 version, do not get the OpenGL version it is not compadible
with debian.
there is another company that makes a cheaper(~$35 last i
checked) X server called Metro-X from a company called
Metrolink. They have good stuff too, infact they donated
a bunch of code to Xfree version 4, I have not used
them personally but I imagine they would be just as good
as AcceleratedX for most people.
good luck
nate
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