I followed everything correctly but startx refuses to start x, among other problems..
 

Hello, I read the Very Verbose Debian from the sticky I really enjoyed this guide and did everything it wanted me to do. I configured x perfectly and everything yet when I startx it tells me that no screens could be found.... Well I wouldn't find this piece of news except I configured x already. I also put on synaptic through apt-get, everything went fine but Debian refuses to launch a display for it, rendering it useless to me. I really don't care too much about synaptic at this very point in time though, I would rather have x start for me. Thanks for any helpful advice on what to do.



Ack - almost forgot.. I am running Debian Woody (current), I also have a pretty decent system that will be more than enough to run Debian; I bring this up because I noticed when X refused to start because of the lack of screens up above it, it says that it could not auto detect hardware. Maybe it thinks it is too old or something, I don't know. I'll I can tell you is that my system is very nice for me, but my dad has a much nicer computer.


Let's see here..... I run a 32 bit processor, 512mb of ram, I have an ATI Radeon 9500 Pro (a bit outdated..). It's nice for what I need it for, not top of the line but it should run Debian, and Debian should auto detect my hardware. My question is now: If Debian cannot auto detect my hardware to run startx how do I go about fixing this?? I have been in a distro shuffle for so long I just want something I can stick to, and with Debian's amazing packages I think I just found it. Now to just get that X working and I'd be in business. Thanks.


One final thing - please don't yell at me, I read a number of stickies and googled around for a bit. I did try to obtain the answer before coming here. Thanks for your time, for I am a Debian newbie.

UPDATE: OK, when I run startx it will tell me: "Fatal sever error: No screens found", but when I run xdm, it will just sit there and flash the screen three or four times and shoot me back into the command line.

...I have a feeling I am being ignored..

If nobody has an answer or is not liking my question could you please give me a good link to get the answer elsewhere? Please be newb friendly here.


Don't mean to sound like a jerk or anything but I would like to get this up and running. Is "Woody" not what I'm looking for? Will Sarge fix my startx problem because it is newer? Please at least point me in the right direction, thank you.

Hi,
No, you are not ignored Mr Hill. Well, I have installed Sarge a few days ago on two different computers with 2 different kernels,
2.4 and 2.6 to see whether there were differences between them. As expected, this was just a matter of opinion, because both
running on 2 differently powerful boxes gave the same feeling.

Now to your X problems : I would just suggest to try and avoid Woody. Why don't you just start again by installing Sarge,
the installer is a bit different and has improved , IMHO.
Besides, I would advise you to forget apt-get or synaptics for a first install. Go for an FTP install and make sure you use aptitude .
I don't know if you are only English speaking but there is a very good French book about Debian, very up-to-date (published last year),
whose reference you can find at Debian.org if you visit the site (which I strongly advise, too)

I know this is not much but I hope this could point you in the right direction, especially about using aptitude for a first install.
You will make it. I did and I have used Linux for just 6 months.

Wow ! Once you'll get it running : apt-get update, apt-get upgrade : power !!

Cheers :)

OK thanks. I'll try Sarge I guess, it looks kind of cool. Kind of confused on what ISO I should download though.. ah my head hurts.. I'm tired and I don't want to think. I just need a quick ISO dl that will give me Sarge.

OK I think I'm on to something but I'm still confused as hell

http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

Last thing : on the Debian site ISOs are quite confusing. If I were you I would order one. Just the install one, though, no need
to get a whole bunch. In the book I got there was Sarge 3.1, the author is a Debian French developper. He really knows his
stuff :)

^agreed^ they do make it quite difficult to get the Sarge ISO. I might end up ordering it but what good would i do to buy a beta release of something? Eventually Sarge will be the new stable release - plus what if Sarge gives me the same x problem? Eh... I might order if it's cheap, I'll check it out.

Now downloading "sarge-i386-netinst.iso" it's only 107 MB though, hmm.. hope this works.

I tried installing woody on my system, and X not starting was only one of a number of issues I was having. I then installed Sarge with netinstall rc2, and it went perfect. Last night I replaced my dying hard drive with a new one, and downloaded and burnt the sarge netinstall with rc3, and could not get it to boot or start installing. I then tried with rc2 again, and the install went perfect. So if you are trying to do a netinstall with rc3 and run into problems, try using rc2. I do believe moving to Sarge will solve your problems, it did mine.
Hope this helps.

Thanks for the tip, Sarge might help me out a bit.