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Re: About to give up: No X after upgrade from Potato to Woody



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    Greetings Ken:

On Friday 26 July 2002 12:23 pm, Ken Januski wrote:
> Thanks for the advice Steve,
>
> I've tried some of it. I removed gpm. I then took at look at what packages
> I had and saw I had one for xserver-common version 3 as well as 4. I told
> dselect to remove version 3. It told me it would remove:
> task-x-windows-system-core
> xf86setup
> xserver-common-v3
> xserver-sv3
> xserver-svga
> xserver-vga16
>
> I trusted it on this and said ok. That seemed to work except for a note
> telling me that I'd need to run dkpg-reconfigure xserver-s3v before I
> restarted x.
>
> I also linked /dev/mouse to /dev/ttys0, which is owned by root.
>
> I then tried X -configure. That told me that /etc/X11/X was not executable.
> startx told me the same thing. When I checked I then saw that /etx/X11/X is
> a link to the svga server that I just got rid of!
>
> So now I'm stuck in a new place and am not really sure if I've progressed
> or not. Perhaps you can tell better than I. Unfortunately I now have to
> leave for an 8 hour work shift. But if you have any more ideas as to what
> to try next please let me know. I'd really like to get this straighened
> out.

I am going to suggest two things for you.

A.  Focus on & solve one problem, then migrate to the next.
B.  keep a tally of what you have done each step of the way so you can pass 
along pertinent details to the list.

Did you take the advice and install "gpm" and verify the mouse is 
working?  I have not seen a post from you the verify this.  Do this as root 
in a console.  If you are successful, then we move onto the next issue 
because we *know* your mouse works.

Make sure you have these installed on your system:
(dpkg -l xfree86-common xserver-xfree86)
ii  xfree86-common  4.1.0-16 'X Window System (XFree86) infrastructure'
ii  xserver-xfree86    4.1.0-16 'the XFree86 X server'

Now look in /etc/X11/ for a file called XF86Config-4 and move it to a safe 
place for now (cp /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 /root).  If this file does *not* 
exist, the next paragraph will create one for you.

The command 'dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86' will start a configure script 
for x.  I looked up your video card here:
http://xfree86.org/current/Status30.html#30   and also here:
http://xfree86.org/4.1.0/SiS.html

According to this info, the driver for your card is in the basic server, so 
you can simply select the card within the installation script.  Follow the 
script and it will write you a new config file for x.  If you muck up the 
first time, do it again and again until you get the correct settings, and are 
able to make x look the way you want it to look.  Also, I let debconf manage 
the configurations.  It seems to work very well.

As a side note, I prefer to use the advance settings so that I can enter 
exact data about my video card and my monitor settings.  Again, the 
dpkg-reconfigure script will make it very easy to modify your x settings 
repeatedly until you are satisfied with the results.

> Thanks,
>
> Ken
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gashuffer09@comcast.net [mailto:gashuffer09@comcast.net]
> Sent: Friday, July 26, 2002 2:05 PM
> To: Debian
> Subject: Re: About to give up: No X after upgrade from Potato to Woody
>
> This one time, at band camp, Ken Januski said:
> > I'm afraid I've had no luck and am afraid I may only be digging a deeper
> > hole for myself at this point. X was working beautifully for a year
> > before
>
> I
>
> > upgraded. I did try to use the old XF86Config file but kept getting
> > errors about "/dev/mouse unable to get status of mouse fd (inappropriate
> > ioctl
>
> for
>
> > device". I then got errors about "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit/xinitrc: gmc
>
> not
>
> > found" and then "panel" not found. Those last two errors were from lines
>
> in
>
> > my Xsession file and I put them in so long ago I no longer remember what
> > they did. I believe they are what I needed to get GNOME to start.
> >
> > I've commented them out and so don't get them anymore though X still
>
> doesn't
>
> > start because of the "unable to get status of mouse fd" error. Some
>
> research
>
> > on the archives led me to suspect that was related to gpm, something I'm
>
> not
>
> > that familiar with. Based on what I read I don't need gpm since I use X
>
> and
>
> > so I killed gpm. But still the errors continued.
> >
> > At this point the only clue I have as to how to proceed is in regard to
>
> the
>
> > mouse. I've fiddled with its settings in /dev, trying various links
>
> since
>
> > I no longer remember what it was when it worked. At one point after I'd
> > linked /dev/mouse to /tty0 I think, X no longer gave me the errors. But
> > at the same time it immediately shut down, i.e. it ran through all the
>
> startup
>
> > messages then said it was shutting down.
> >
> > Though I've spoken highly of Debian in the past I'm coming to the
>
> conclusion
>
> > that it's only for people who have the time to learn every bit of arcana
> > regarding every bit of their software and hardware. There's something
> > good about that and I'm happy such a distribution exists. But I'm also
>
> realizing
>
> > I don't have the time to go through this every time I want to make a
>
> change
>
> > on my system and it may just not be the distribution for me. I'm going to
> > spend a few more days on this but if I don't get it fixed after that I
> > may have to try something else.
>
> OK - lets's work through the various problems.  I have:
> steve@gashuffer:~$ ls -l /dev/mouse
> lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           11 Nov 16  2001 /dev/mouse ->
> /dev/ttyS1
>
> steve@gashuffer:~$ ls -l /dev/ttyS1
> crw-rw----    1 root     dialout    4,  65 Jul 26 13:26 /dev/ttyS1
>
> (not sure why the dialout group - probably legacy serial line for modem)
>
> Make sure you have actually removed all of the v3.x X packages, and that
> they have been replaced by v4.x packages.  `dpkg -l > packages.list` will
> give you a file with a list of all packages on your system, and their
> state.  You can look through to make sure everything is as it should be.
> If you find package names are cut off by tab widths, preface the above
> comand with COLUMNS=100
>
> If you don't use gpm in the console, kill it or remove it.
>
> You cannot use the XF86Config file that potato used - Xv4 uses a
> different format config file, and you'll need to generate a new one.
> X -configure will get you a basic working one that you can then edit -
> you'll want to look it over to make sure that it points to the device
> that your mouse is actually attached to, and that it figured out your
> video card and monitor correctly.  Don't worry about getting
> acceleration going just yet, we'll get you a working X server first.
>
> After that, as root, follow the directions you see on the screen.  Does
> X start?  If not, write back, you'll have to adjust the config file it
> generatesd for you.  If it does start, then try it as your user.  If it
> still falls over, then the problem is in you .xsession or .xinitrc - the
> easiest thing to do is comment out everything but the basics of what you
> use, e.g. gnome-session or wmaker or whatever.  Just note that the new
> gnome-session has a way to start other programs at start-up - you no
> longer need to specify them all in .xsession.
>
> HTH,
> Steve

gl to you, ihth

tatah
- -- 

Jaye Inabnit\ARS ke6sls\/A GNU-Debian linux user\/ http://www.qsl.net/ke6sls
If it's stupid, but works, it ain't stupid. I SHOUT JUST FOR FUN.
Free software, in a free world, for a free spirit. Please Support freedom!

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