I have been changing the mouse protocols in xorg.conf due to my logitech cordless mouse not working, and now it won't boot into linux it goes up to the nvidia screen and then I get a black screen with Colors on it, I tried using alt F6 but it goes to let me login and goes aways fast, I don't know what to do, I've been having such a hard time with slackware 10, even though ive only been using it for like 3 weeks...help and suggestions would be appreciated.

Can you post your xorg.conf file? It'll be hard to diagnose the problem without it....

Also, you say linux won't boot because of changes to xorg.conf... but I use slackware 10 as well and I boot into a standard terminal, no X involved. Did you set yours up to boot into X automatically, or are you referring to startx not working?

Thanks.

zhangmaike

Yeah to boot into x automatically, and i dont know how to get into linux now cause it goes all the way almost up to a black screen with diffrent color dots on it and won't go further!!!!

On the lilo prompt, enter "single" (without the quotes)
as a parameter. That should get you to a normal text
mode login, and from there (using mc, pico, vi, emacs
- whatever suits you best) you can fix your xorg.conf.

You DID make a backup copy of the file before editing
it, right? :)


Cheers,
Tink

See I can't get to a prompt, I get to one, then it goes away for some reason, and goes to login and gets to the black screen with the colors.

If you can get to a text terminal, and you didn't back up your xorg.conf, you could even re-probe your hardware... although the command to do so escapes me at present... I'll post back if i remember it... or maybe someone else already does? =)

Read my post again ... if you're using slackware, you
get a lilo-prompt. On the lilo prompt, highlight the kernel
image with the cursor-keys, and then type SINLGE behind
the name that appears on the command-line.



Cheers,
Tink

X -configure



Cheers,
Tink

Ah. It's all coming back to me.... =)

Guts, if you really can't use the lilo prompt (I've configured mine to boot w/o a prompt, yours might be the same.) you can always use disc 1 from the slackware installation to boot your system with a text terminal.

If you've set-up lilo to bypass the prompt you can easily
get to it by pressing Ctrl or Alt or Both after the POST ...


Cheers,
Tink

If you are a Linux... wha? n00b? ...then you do not want to complicate your life by trying to solve this problem before you've gotten the system to at least start up and let you get access to things like man and info pages. Yeah, you may need to run X11 configuration routines, but why not plug in an old fashioned serial or PS2 or any other old mouse that you can get to work right now, so that you can at least use the info on the system itself to start solving the question of how you configure the newer fancy gear?

Note that the same approach is almost universally used with video displays: no matter whatcha got, start with settings for an unadorned 640 x 480 VGA display and you will at least get started; you can then use friendly tools to finish the job. My own system installs with an unknown monitor. It detects the right video card but then misconfigures it, so that in two consecutive releases of the distro, both blow up when they get to the point where X windows has to load, because the video settings are all screwed up... One way to get around this was to do the same thing that usually works with Windows, which is to install using the simplest possible settings and then configure refinements later. This ain't exactly your situation but it is a pretty good analogy, and that's why I think the use of an old simple mouse to start with will help you out. I'll bet you have one someplace. If not, they're not hard to find.

If you are also having screen problems, maybe you also messed up other settings in xorg.conf while you were trying to work on the mouse... I don't have Slackware but I assume it provides at least some way to get minimal access to text-based terminal-mode use as root. Get on there, run xorg again, and give it generic specs, such as a standard VGA display and a serial mouse (if that's what you can get your hands on). Then quit and try a regular boot again, and keep at it until you can get X running. Once that's done, your system should provide more user friendly tools to add the settings for your actual monitor, display card, and mouse.

Well i can get to a prompt with the first linux install cd but I DON't know what to do next.

P.s. I have been using a corded mouse to be able to try and and get my cordless mouse set up.

Okay, once you've booted into a text terminal, you need to make sure your root directory is mounted. If you specified such options at boot, you'll be fine. Otherwise, make a directory, mount your root partition on it, and then chroot the directory to temporarily set it as root.

Then run "X -configure" and take the file it produces (it'll tell you where it is) and replace the old xorg.conf file with it. Before rebooting, try startx to make sure it really does work.

If any of those steps need clarification, let me know...

okay i got to a black screen with a mouse cursor but it wouldnt go further.

Hmmm... now I'm a little confused...

In X, if nothing starts up, you'll just see an X cursor with a patterned background... something would have to be running to set the background black. Can you give more details about your X setup? What window manager is listed in /etc/X11/xinitrc?

I'm assuming the black screen resulted from startx? Can you give more details about exactly what happened after what?

EDIT: If you can move the mouse pointer, X is probably working fine now...