[SOLVED] Weird looking graphics problem upon fresh install.

misc · 12-27-2017, 10:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rotwang2

Oh wow that's great information about runlevels being basically obsolete- well that just shows my old age! (Well, that plus shown by the fact that I've got two 32 bit shuttle devices from 10 years ago. Sigh.)

You call that hardware old? Oh my!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rotwang2

Well actually, you don't need to avoid x from starting in order to get to a text console. There's two ways to get to a terminal even if you've booted into a broken x (unless it's outright freezing the *entire* system):

You can either ctrl-alt-4 (or wait, it might be ctrl-alt-f4), or if you have ssh installed you can just login from the outside.

Yes, those are the socalled "virtual consoles", but as long as the broken display manager and stuff is still running, you want to stop those processes anyway before starting something else.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rotwang2

Oh lastly- as for the graphics card being an unknown, well- remember, the installer had no problem displaying on this same gfx card, so... right? So between the 32 bit processor and the gfx card, neither could be the villain.

Different kernel, updates, runtime detected driver options whatever. One could guess a whole day long.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rotwang2

Anyway, I'm gonna just do, like "yum install xfce". And then how do I switch startx to run xfce instead? Is that something you can tell me in a sentence or is it complicated and I should go RTFM? no problem, lemme know, thanks again,

Not "yum", since it has been replaced with "dnf" a long time ago. You likely want a groupinstall, such as

dnf install @xfce-desktop-environment

and then start XFCE with "startxfce4".

Using the following executable $HOME/.xinitrc script would also make it work with plain startx:

#!/bin/sh
xfce4-session

Rotwang2 · 12-28-2017, 09:40 PM

ZOMG!! Woo! I've got xfce running and it works fine. I haven't rebooted yet, and I'll have to figure out how to make it go directly into kfce instead of attempting a prompt with the damn gray box, but if I can't figure that out, that'll be for another post. Also I'm running it as root which is not a good idea so I'm guessing/hoping it'll work fine from a user account.

(And oh yea, I keep forgetting about dnf, (not to be confused with the puzzle competition term).)

Hey thanks so much misc, this actually worked.

Hey last question- to switch back to "real" console, ctrl-alt-f4 no longer works. Is there still a way, or do I have no other option but to reboot to runlevel 3 instead of 5? Btw I'd rather (eventually) stick with 5 when the dust is all settled. Call me old-fashioned... (because I am, haha). I can ctrl-alt-f2 to get a prompt, but the only way to ctrl-c the xfce session is to be on the console that started it (f4), and if I switch to f4, I get the gray box.

Anyway I can probably figure that out if you don't know off the top of your head.

Thanks again! woo!

m

Rotwang2 · 12-30-2017, 05:52 AM

Oh fyi for anyone who wants to know more-

To kill the open gnome processes I googled around and found:

pkill x

And that worked, but... I read up on pkill and that looks like a blunt weapon. I guess I could just kill all the gdm processes with killall... but is that everything?

Anyway though- another sneaky thing you can do that works- you can install vnc. It's all pretty painless

dnf install tigervnc-server -y then set up your passwords, etc, here:

https://www.atlantic.net/community/h...wn-vnc-server/

Then from another machine when you vnc in, it starts a gnome session and it all looks fine, bypassing your gfx card and display, right. I guess from there you can do all that initial setup stuff like language, timezone, keyboard or whatever, I didn't bother, but just letting you know that's a sneaky simple move.

-Rotwang