i have installed debian on my laptop, and apt-get ed xserver-xfree86, x-window-system-core, kde-core and kdm

i think that is all i need to be able to startx, but when i do, it just gives me a blank screen, flollowed by a slightly different shade of black.

usually when it does this i do a dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg, but it says it doesnt have that. i googled a bit and found that i might need to do dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86, which i did, but it didnt change anything.

help?
thx

well actually nevermind, i booted mepis and copied accross the configuration file from that

Try this command:

more /var/log/XFree86.0.log

You can move down the log file by pressing the space bar. Try to find any lines beginning with (EE), those lines should tell any errors that happened during X start. The actual reason why X fails to start should be found in the last lines of the log file.

The most common problems in "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86" are the mouse device configuration, choosing the right video driver and your monitor's horizontal and vertical refresh settings (in "advanced" monitor settings). Get those settings right and you should be able to start X. Reading the XFree86 log file can help you to pinpoint where the problem lies.

OK. Nice to hear you solved it.

You should probably install xserver-xorg because xfree86 is obsolete now. Xorg has much more options than xfree86 has, and I can't even get xfree with the unstable 64bit version. It defaults to xorg.... I was pissed at first, but now I've come to realize it's close to the same thing/config file. I'm glad they kept the same config file format, makes things a lot easier.

Xorg is not avilable in stable/sarge, which is what I think he is using.