RE: Xfree86 problems
Under the advice of a fellow subscriber, I realized that I hadn't renamed the file "XF86Config" (generated by the xf86config utility) to the more-appropriate "XF86Config-4". I did this, and this time X11 did attempt to start up (the monitor flickered a bit), but failed. I read the error messages and decided to apply some educated guesswork.
Finally I think that I am able to do it, almost. I'm pretty sure that I have the Horizontal Sync and Vertical Sync rates correct, because I found this information on two separate web sites for my monitor (Horizontal is 30-82, Vertical is 50-120). But I may have made an incorrect choice in the installation as to the kind of monitor. I picked "unsupported VGA" or something like that, because I didn't see my monitor in the list. Should I have chosen something else? And if so, how do I bring up the configuration (or which file do I modify and where) to do this? "xf86config" doesn't prompt me as to the type of monitor, but I know that I answered this question (perhaps wrongly) during the install. I can't seem to invoke "debconf" either, if that matters.
What happens is I am able to actually start the X server. The problem is that the entire top half of the screen shows up as black, whereas the bottom half of the screen looks cartoonishly big. The resolution must somehow be getting set to some abominably low amount (the mouse cursor itself is about an inch long in this mode). But KDE is starting up because I see the KDE splash screen, and there is an exaggeratedly large toolbar at the bottom of the screen. Everything is so big that, combined with the absence of any content in the top half of my screen, I can't really do anything or see anything. I just kill the X server with Ctrl Alt Backspace and try again, but that's the best results I can get.
Has anyone else ever had the entire top half of their monitor be black like that? Note that I think that it must be a display problem and not a physical dead spot because if I move the mouse deep into the black area, it takes an equal amount of movement to pull it back down into view. That is to say, the mouse *is* going somewhere, not just hitting a wall.
Thank you,
Erik Price
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