I acquired a used Compaq EVO P4 to replace a server with a fried mainboard. I moved the drives to the EVO, booted it and it came up with no problems other then X11. Apparently Mandriva cannot auto-configure the onboard video. When I try to start X, it complains about not having drivers. Can someone point me to some instructions for setting this thing up for X11 and where I can find drivers? TIA.

Hi, what drivers?

type lspci (-v verbose) to see a list of hardware.

Take a note of the graphics (VGA) chipset.

run, xorgconf and answer the questions.

If you have your rpm database and repos up to date, with urpmi,

then it will install the packages required. Restart x to see the results.

Vesa usually works as a good fall-back.

Regards, Glenn

Thanks for the reply. I guess I must have something wrong with the driver directory. No matter what I pick, when I start X it tells me the module does not exist. Is there a way to force a refresh on the modules with urpmi?

Hi, that's too bad.

What version of the kernel is it?

type uname -a to find out.

Have you considered compiling a newer version, or

re-compiling the installed one to add custom modules for the server?

There must be others who have done this.

lsmod will show a list of installed modules, while

lspci will show hardware attached to the pci bus.

Usually you can cross reference these.

Have you tried to boot a live distro to check the same things with a different OS?(linux)

cheers, Glenn

ps. with xorgconfig you might try to just use the defaults (press enter on each question) as this may offer you a gui, although basic, that may help get started.

Linux dap002 2.6.17-8mdv #1 SMP Tue Dec 19 11:27:03 MST 2006 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 1.80GHz GNU/Linux

I installed from binaries. Remember this was a working system whose hard drives were simply plugged into the current machine and booted.

Doesn't 'lsmod' show the loaded modules rather than available ones? Either way none of the video card modules seem to be "available."

I did use all defaults with 'xorgconfig'. That is why I said no matter what card I try, 'startx' complains the module does not exist (including VESA). I don't know where they are supposed to be but I bet they are there if I knew where to look.

I have the 2007 Free Spring DVD. However, I am reluctant to do an upgrade. In the past each time I've done one, it made my installation unusable and I have to spend days trying to get everything working again.

Hi, I can understand your fears of upgrading, really I understand.

How about a link checker? ldconfig...
or symlink symlinks -csrv /(dir)
check the man pages and --help to see the switches that can be used.

These may uncover where the files are to be linked to.

Yes, lsmod only shows installed modules.

It could be the agp-gart. You can have a look at what xsession errors are, it may give some answers, or at least a place to look further... (use vi to view from a shell.)

~/.xsession-errors (home or root, depending on who you are trying to login as)

and

/var/xorg.0.log There are others here, messages syslog and dmesg. (as you may know)

That's all I have for now,

Regards Glenn

p.s. you could try to re-install the "base" packages for that version.
ldconfig is built in now-a-days, but may be a seperate package on older systems. GW

Well, in frustration I decided to roll the dice and upgrade to 2007 Spring. While the upgrade failed, it may have shed some light on this problem. During the upgrade it went into a loop displaying an error trying to do whatever it was doing with X11.

I had to power down the machine to get out of it. I'm not sure where in the process my machine is but it seems to be working except for the original problem.

My first question is, where is the install log hidden so I can post the output? Hopefully it will tell someone what the problem is. Thanks.

Hi, one last try.

logs are usually /var/logs, and home/user/.xsession (notice the dot. xsession is a different file)

If you use urpmi, then you might get it by installing

urpmi X11-driver-video

and any deps, but I fear without the device name, you're on your own!

please post any results,

cheers, Glenn

Thanks for the reply. There is nothing readily identifiable in /var/logs as being the install log. That was the first place I looked. Since I ran this from the DVD, I doubt it would put .xsession in some user's home directory.

The video driver seems to be available in the upgrade. At least it was correct when I looked at the configure options in the install GUI. The error says something about a variable named HASH(<hex number>) being undefined, then a trace back. If I could find where it put that I could post it. However, during the install there is no way to copy and paste the errors anywhere since not enough of the system is up.