I installed Debian 5 on my HP DL380 G6. For simplicity of modification I installed the Gnome package but it wont start. I think maybe its an issue with the video. I have tried running dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg to try to set the video to vesa. When i run it, it only wants to configure the keyboard and nothing else. It only has xorg and not xfree86. I tried to manually modify the xorg.conf file by putting driver "vesa" and saving it, but i still get the same error when i try start x which is "server is already active for display 0", so i tried startx -- :1 and it runs thru a config a just stays at restore dac and just sits there. Any thoughts??

Which console are you on? Try CTRL+ALT+F7. Usually X starts on console 7.

Im remote using putty, ctrl alt f7 doesnt work. Im not sure what console.

If you're remote using putty, you need to be sure that X11 forwarding is allowed (both on the server and within Putty).

You also need to make sure you have a LOCAL X server. If you're on a windows machine, that means you need to install Cygwin or Xming.

Thanks for that info, i will try that to see it run remotely, but how can i reconfigure xorg to get the video driver info, like i said in the original post I need to get it configured. Its going to be be managed by someone else at the server location so i dont necessarily have to see it run.

You can't know about the local video screen (i.e. at the server location) without being there. You can set it up remotely with dpkg-reconfigure, but I don't think you can actually tell if there are any problems (beyond what shows up in the xorg.log file) without sitting in front of it.

NOTE: I haven't actually tried reconfiguring a remote video screen before. I'm just speculating based on what little I know about how X works.

Since it gives you
Seems to me X is running.

Take a look in the logfiles
/var/log/Xorg.0.log
to see if X is started, and if there are erromessages.
If there are no errormessages, it should be OK
If gnome is installed, you should start X by using gdm
See if gdm is running

To stop the current session
to start a new session

Ok, so I went in the log file and there were no errors. I used the ps ax | grep gdm and got this back:

3321 pts/0 S+ 0:00 grep gdm

The person near the server says that when i try to startx it just gets a black screen.

You need to start X local

I would suggest to ask the person at the computer to reboot the computer, and see what happens.
Make sure the computer boots into X

Thanks. My server is in Switzerland and Im in the US, so I will wait until tomorrow.

Hi paganogden,

I'm also interested in installing Lenny on the DL 380 G6 and have a few questions.

1. Did you happend to install the current Lenny 5.0.3 ? (netinst CD ?)
2. Was the network card driver included or did you add that afterwards?
3. Was the rest of the install successful ?

Thanks for your time.

-Kenyon

Hi...I did install the 5.0.3 Netint from cd, it found the network card on probe, and found the packages on the mirror. Other than gnome it works perfectly, we are using it as a web server and installed Apache2 on it as well. I also installed this on a DL360 G3 and it works flawlessly. I installed KDE and Apache2 on that as well.