Sidney Brooks wrote:
Here is an update. I wiped out the drive using a program from the manufacturer of my computer available at www.microtelinc.com. I then was able to use my Windows XP disk, which previously simple led to a frozen screen, to reinstall Windows. I then partitioned the disk and installed RedHat, with no trouble, and Debian. The failure to go into graphics in Debian persists. There is some improvement. When I boot into Debian, there are no freezes, I get into the text mode. On using the command "startx", I could not get into graphics. Here are the errors from /var/log/Xfree86.0.log: (WW) Cannot open APM (EE) VESO(0):No matching modes (EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration. I noticed in installing RedHat, which works, that instead of using my actual SavagePro card, it chose VESA. I did the same with Debian, but it still did not get me into graphics.
Educational, isn't it? :-)Try renaming the "/etc/X11/XF86Config" file (or you could delete it, since it doesn't work anyway), and then copy over the XF86Config file from Redhat to Debian. That might work.
Or you could run "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86" and/or "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-common" and try various things, such as choosing a lower resolution or color depth or different drivers.
I find Debian Stable to be a bit antiquated for my tastes for a desktop workstation. Sid or Testing might have newer X parts that will work better with your video card. If you have a fast network connection (or are willing to wait on a slow one), you can edit "/etc/apt/sources.list" to pull from one of these newer repositories and upgrade your Debian system. For example:
# Stable deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ stable main non-free contribdeb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates main contrib non-free # UnStable deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ unstable main non-free contribdeb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US unstable/non-US main contrib non-free
Then do "apt-get update" followed by "apt-get dist-upgrade". Now you'll have newer X and Mozilla and KDE and and and etc.
I know it's frustrating. But once Debian's installed, it's easy to maintain. -- Kent