Hi all,

I have had endless problems trying to get X working. I have installed it using gentoo, and then copied the XF86Config.example to XF86Config and made some adjustments, but it won't work.

I have tried 100s of times to get it right but I don't know what is wrong.

The symptoms I have been getting from each failed attempt are varied. Here are some examples of the sort of problems I have experienced:

* Errors trying to start X due to errors in the XF86Config.
* X starts but does not fill the entire screen (a thick black border goes round the edge of the screen)
* Works fine but when I quit, I get a black screen instead of a console
* Start and quit work but then when I restart again I just get a black screen.
* Switching to a console and back to X gives a black screen.


Then after doing all this, I read about the xf86config program and decided to give that a try. I am not sure exactly what my hardware is so I probably answered some of the questions incorrectly.

extract from /sbin/lspci :

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corp. 82845G/GL [Brookdale-G] Chipset Integrated Graphics Device (rev 03)

This device is not listed in xf86config, so I chose one with a similar name : Intel810. This is probably wrong?

How do I know how much memory is on the card?

Anyway my latest error is:


Using vt 7
(EE) FBDEV(0): FBIOPUT_VSCREENINFO: Invalid argument
(EE) FBDEV(0): Mode init failed.

Fatal server error:
AddScreen/ScreenInit failed for driver 0


What can I do to get a correct XF86Config? I have tried Knoppix and it works fine, but when I copied the XF86Config from the Knoppix CD it doesn't work! What is going on there?!

I have wasted hours and hours trying to get this to work properly - please help!

Thanks,
Mark Byers.

Well, my first recommendation, is use a generic driver.........since that one seems to be erroneous.

Secondly, try xf86config <------as a command - not editing the file directly.
Come back then, and let us know what happens after that.
It much better if we know the exact steps that you take to get there.
That, we have a control, and a reference to get an idea wtf.....

OK, using the Vesa driver seems to help, plus I had to recompile the kernel wiht the frame buffer as Vesa. Now X fills the whole screen, the black border is gone, but I still have a problem that I cannot swich to a console and back. If I do, I just get a black screen and I have to beboot to get X working again.

Any ideas?

um. this is a pretty costly solution but why don't u invest in a card by nvidia. the thing is that nvidia is the company i know that is actually making a concerted effort to make their products compatible with linux. Their driver updates are periodic and are usually of very good quality. even if their driver doesn't work for you, X comes with a perfectly good generic driver although theres not 3D acceleration.
it might be worth it, considering all the effort u've put in trying to get ur existing card to work.

How many consoles do you have? and what combination of keys are you trying to go back to the X?

If you are wrong in the apropriate combination, the screen just remains black with a cursor blinking in the upper left corner.

I'm not sure but maybe if you have less than 6 consoles configured in /etc/inittab, the combination of keys to go back is different.

Try with other ALT+Fx combinations.

Hope it helps.

I second that, it does a very nice job.

Thanks for all the replies... yes xf86config seems to work nicely, once you know what to type.

As for buying an nVidia card - this is not really an option since I am using a laptop, and it is very costly to buy a whole new laptop just to fix one minor problem (I have to reboot every time I log out of X). But thanks for the suggestion anyway, if this was a desktop, I would do this.

To cause the error i type Alt+Ctrl+F2 .. there is no blinking cursor, no nothing. Just black, the only way I can tell that the monitor is on at all is because the backlight doesn't turn off. I notice that when I change the screen flickers a bit, it seems to be changing resoolution or something, and I think the backlight might flash on and off. I would test it now except that I'd have to reboot again and I don't want to. After doing Ctrl+Alt+F2, i then do Alt+F7 to get back to my desktop but it doesn't come back even to the desktop. Once I have the 'Black Screen Of Death', it seems that there is nothing at all I can do except reboot.

Note this problem does not occur under Knoppix. I still have the problem, hoping that someone can help, perhaps someone with the same make of graphics card as me (Intel 82845G).

Regards,
Mark.

you could use the XF86Config file that knoppix creates. Just copy it over to your slackware partition.

Success!!

The solution was to use 'driver=i810' in XF86Config. I also recompiled my kernel a few times to add missing modules that I think were required.

Thanks to all those that gave suggestions.

Mark.