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Get a black screen when logoff in Debian Etch..same problem with Ctrl+alt+f1

Hello,

I recently installed Debian Etch as a dual boot on my laptop . I am having an issue with logging off . Also ctrl+alt+f1 does not bring me to the shell . All I get is a black screen in both the cases and i have to manually shutdown my laptop and reboot.
I am however able to shutdown and restart from within gnome.I am new to linux so cant figure out whats wrong. I tried to find out what onboard video card im using from within windows by right clicking on the
desktop then going to :
display properties->settings->advanced->adapter and there it says :
VIA Chrome9 HC IGP.
I have already tried the following troubleshooting steps but it didnt work :

Already tried steps :
---------------------

1) Tried ctrl+alt+f5 , ctrl+alt+f7 ,ctrl+alt+backspace but get the same black screen and have to manually shutdown and reboot.

2) Added vga=771 at the end of the kernel line in /boot/grub/menu.lst . Also tried vga=773,vga=791

3) Ran the command :

Code:

su cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf | grep "Driver"

to get information on driver and the output of the above command is :

Code:

Driver    "kbd"

Driver    "mouse"

Driver    "vesa"

What could be going wrong ?
Please help.

Thanks :)

First thing I would try is to edit xorg.conf and change "vesa" to "via"

by default I believe the via driver is automatically installed in etch..

Code:

aptitude search video-via

i A xserver-xorg-video-via          - X.Org X server -- VIA display driver

the actual driver project is here, in case you should need more info on the driver for some reason... http://www.openchrome.org/

Hello farslayer,

Thanks for the reply . I ran the command

Code:

aptitude search video-via

and the output was

Code:

i A xserver-xorg-video-via - X.Org X server -- VIA display driver

.
I also changed the "vesa" to "via" in xorg.conf. But then when i rebooted my system i got the following error :

Code:



Failed to start the X Server (your Graphical User Interface) . It is likely that it is not set up correctly . Would you like to view the X server output to diagnose the problem ?

I viewed the log file Xorg.0.log which is located at /var/log . At the end there was a line that said "No devices detected.Fatal server error:no screens found".
I was then taken to the shell where i changed "via" back to "vesa" in xorg.conf and was able to get to my desktop. But,the problem still persists.

So, it looks like the drivers included in Etch do not support your Via graphics chip set.. Ubuntu has a nice guide of how to download and install the latest openchrome drivers in Ubuntu. Should be pretty much the same in Debian, just no sudo..

http://www.hombrepac.com.ar/software...untu-edgy-610/

OH found a how-to on the openchrome site for Debian Etch
http://wiki.openchrome.org/tikiwiki/...code+on+Debian

I'm not sure if this will or won't help but I searched about the VIA Chrome drivers for video and found this link VIA Arena. Hope this will help you. I'm still in the process of getting my new MSI mobo w/ VIA chipset up and running like I want.