Debian on an iMac : no X ! pls help...
 

dear readers,

installed debian sarge, kernel 2.6 on an imac g3 400.
boots fine, but no x. blanc screen.
went into yaboot with Linux 1 for command line.

read lots of forums, so i started dkpg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86.

there, i've tried almost all the drivers. like ati, vga and fbd. i specified the bus identifier PCI:00:10:0, after a lspci check.

but none works, after reboot, x tries to start 3 times and then i get the message that it cant start and something is not configured right.

can someone walk me through the dpkg-reconfigure ?
what driver should i pick ? what resolution should i set ? etc.

btw what mouse should i set, using a one button apple puck mouse ?

working for days now, cant figure out anymore what i'm doing wrong.

thanks...

btw also posted this one on 'hardware'. getting really hopeless and confused ;-(

Usually the "vesa" driver is the best generic one there is. Can you post the out put of lspci so we know what video card it is using?

As to resolution, that's generally defined by your monitor, but 1024 x 768 is a pretty standard one. You also might need to figure out the frequency of your monitor (60Hz, 70Hz, 75Hz, etc). Maybe try booting a LiveCD that will work on a Mac and finding out what modules loaded?

lspci says 00.10.0: display controller ATI Technologies Rage 128 RL/VR AGP.
the VESA driver you mentioned, is not listed to choose from, at the list dpkg-reconfigure gives me.
ATI is listed, VGA is and some others but these don't work.

Well, at least i found out how to boot yaboot in runlevel 1 so i have a commandline. like that, but want X too ;-)

waiting for your reply, thanks !

Another thought, is there anything listed in /var/log/xorg.0.log (or something like that)?

Also, I found a thread somewhere on the Ubuntu site that mentions this sometimes it helps to set the default display depth to 16 instead of 24. I don't remember if you can set that in dpkg-reconfigure or if you'll have to edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf...

you can set that in dpkg-reconfigure

i copied someone elses xfree86-4 script into my system, after that i got graphics. but gnome was totally fucked up. seemed that time was not right cause of empty motherboard battery.
this seems to cause some problems with a linux install.
fixed that with date -s and ntvdate server at startup......
lots of little problems still to work on, but at least display works now.
thanks for the help, you poinyed me to some good links and thoughts.,.

since this was the clue that led me to fixing the same problem I thought I would give a slightly more precise solution. (this may be obvious but it wasn't to me)

I changed the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file to match below:

...
Section "Monitor"
...
HorizSync 58-62
VertRefresh 75-117
...

Prior to this edit I was able to view the boot text but not the gui on the local crt. However I was able to view X Window on the external vga output.

This worked on a G3 iMac DV special edition 700MHz
running Sarge that would not display X Window locally before that change.

Thanks for the hint.

glad it worked out for you.
well, i've done some more work on the iMac, and found out that they are really the 'citroen' cars among computers.
an empty back-up battery caused the bonobo server and gnome to act really strange, because time was set at an incorrect date, like 02-09-1974 ;-).
installing an internet date and time server (ntpdate / ntp-server ) solves this problem because time gets adjusted before x starts.
also, changing my 13gb disk ( 3.5inch ata) for a bigger one is almost impossible.
mac recognises up to 127gb, but partitioning can help of course.
but, on my old disk, i saw a little 32k partition called 'Mac", wich was there when mac-os was still on it. i left it in place after installing debian.
but when you install a new disk, and boot debian, the mac has never seen a mac-os anymore. so no little 32k partition !
so you can boot and install, but after finishing installation, the system wont read from your new hard disk.
i think the original firmware and bios (?) are in the 32k partition.

all too much hassle, so i'm back at my old pc, where you can hust look under the hood easy ;-)