Bug#182976: xserver-xfree86: more information in debconf about possible problems with framebuffer

[Marco Herrn <herrn@gmx.net>]

Package: xserver-xfree86
Version: 4.2.1-3
Severity: minor

Sometimes using the framebuffer device can lead to problems (for example
when using nvidia drivers). The error message from the X server is not
very verbose:

	EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.
	
	Fatal server error:
	no screens found

Nobody can know that this can be the result of using framebuffer.
It would be good, if debconf displays an extra warning to the question
of whether using the framebuffer device, like:

	If you get the error message "no screens found" and
	/var/log/XFree86.0.log contains the line 
	"EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.",
	then this is possibly the result of using the framebuffer
	device. Try turning this option off, by running
	"dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86" and see if the error goes
	away.

I would say this is more a bug of the actual X server, but this message
could help newbies a lot by showing them a frequent cause of problems.

Maybe this problem is the one of bug #157924:
"xserver-xfree86: [nv] no screens found on GeForce2 MX DDR rev 178"


(I do not send the content of my /var/log/XFree86.0.log, because it
wouldn't help here.) 




-- System Information
Debian Release: testing/unstable
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux lurkabove.darkstar 2.4.19 #1 Sam Sep 7 18:28:31 CEST 2002 i686
Locale: LANG=de_DE@euro, LC_CTYPE=de_DE@euro

Versions of packages xserver-xfree86 depends on:
ii  debconf                       1.2.21     Debian configuration management sy
ii  libc6                         2.2.5-14.3 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  xserver-common                4.2.1-3    files and utilities common to all 
ii  zlib1g                        1:1.1.4-6  compression library - runtime