Over the last 11 years I decreased and usually eliminated my non-POSIX & Apple OSes usage (except in non-philosophical society) and increased my POSIXes usage--I have been able to keep POSIX & X/KDE working better for me and longer. My record of not using non-POSIXes & Apple (except sometimes in society including for software required for a non-CS course to work better.) up to yesterday was a year or 2 before X permanently died.

I take steps to mostly deal with dangers inherent to most POSIXes; non-POSIXes mostly have worse security (but I mostly use desktops) and stability--so are in a way much more dangerous--and are so in freedom, etc. IMO. However, many non-POSIX GUI-OSes are much better than X/wms. For most of the time I have used POSIXes the reason I must switch back to trash (besides trying to switch POSIX about each 2 - 4 years because of serious/critical annoyances/problems--often on upgrades--and not being able to quickly download & install a replacement) is X/KDE usually eventually dies no matter how you reconfigure afterwards. This is my problem the last 3 - 5 years. X/KDE died 1 - 2 time[s] in the last 3 years without me being able to fix it without deleting all X/KDE software's configuration/tmp-data and maybe reinstalling them. This time I reinstalled and did again after deleting most its configuration/data. I got several errors--recently:

after 'X -configure':

'Fatal server error:
inconsistent display bitmapScanlineUnit. Exiting'
--------------------------------

and errors after 'xorgconfig' or 'xorgsetup' are:

'Fatal server error:
no screen found'

I can edit (card, monitor, screen sections) to get it to almost run--mouse cursor works; screen remains black. In these cases (maybe also unedited) /var/log/Xorg.0.log usually says someting like:

'cannot find PCI device(s) [number(s) given as in lspci]'

(esp. with vesa driver, which IIRC is the best possible option with the only default kernel, huge.s. I also try mga, i.e. Matrox, and vga \;\) I entered the number in X confs and DISPLAY in various ways, which I recall a way that may fix it. I think one must either set DISPLAY in system or the startx or the startkde or also write 'startkde' in startx, though none of this is documented well if at all, and I doubt any of this is the problem--this is the 1st time I saw the 1st error I listed. I have a custom case in which cards are at a tiny angle in slots, but though console may have G450 problems 1/2 the time, console is readable, and X has no G450 problem. I have an onboard ATI, which lspci and X config programs usually detect, perhaps strangely enough, because the ATI runs only when no vga card is in.

Xorg seems to inherently configure poorly, and maybe mine is corrupt (some files may be--note, after upgrading Slamd64 12.1 by reinstalling, now 'make menuconfig' loads my old successful kernel configurations, but on menuconfig exit make will not use those or any configuration.) X is less stable than self-fixing trash GUI-OSes. I had X problems on NetBSD and maybe Slackware after I checked iso md5sums. For Slamd64 I had no md5sums (now I see they are in one file) and have not been able to ever finish downloading its dvd, and I know not how to check cd md5sums, but X just seems problematic. Svgalib or a non-root version should be used for a GUI, though I still doubt anyone would ever make a decent one not forcing some annoying/tedious style/interface. Old Apples and Konqueror are/were almost nice, though the former has tedious interface, and the latter, tedious style (as well as only usable as sub-GUI.)

--David

What was the question again?

On almost every installation on various hardware, why does X eventually not start anymore, and then

after 'X -configure,' often say:

'Fatal server error:
inconsistent display bitmapScanlineUnit. Exiting'
--------------------------------

and after 'xorgconfig' or 'xorgsetup' usually say:

'Fatal server error:
no screen found'

?

I can edit (card, monitor, screen sections) to get it to almost run--mouse cursor works; screen remains black. In these cases (maybe also unedited) /var/log/Xorg.0.log usually says someting like:

'cannot find PCI device(s) [number(s) given as in lspci]'

Why?

It works after I reinstalled the OS, but X is not exellent.

I'd fix that first, PCI/AGP connectors have pretty fine contacts.
Raise the motherboard or something.

X mightn't be pretty but at least we don't have to write our own mode lines anymore.

1 members found this post helpful.

I had raised the motherboard (to even install cards,) but I may not be able to any more (without a lot of work \:\) the case is bent just enough so that some end of PCI cards are in 0.1 - 0.5 mm less. However, I reinstalled Slamd64, and now X/KDE work, and I am pretty sure I had the scanline error on other hardware and POSIXes. Also xorgconfig & xorgsetup do not give that error, but a completely different one.

I hate reinstalling to fix problems as you never to get to the bottom of the issue.
Can't do anymore now.

I tend to agree--if a program is simple/small enough I can debug. The only thing I had done before restarting X this time is compiled some '*cyrus*' library, but I had another version installed. However, it is not an X lib., and I have had such problems at other times when I did nothing or just edited some of my own text or graphics or audio data files before restarting X. I am not uninterested in debugging GUIs, since they are complicated.

--David

I do not recall if this was solved, but I am marking it solved. I think I just reinstalled X/KDE or Slackware and it worked after that. I do not really like having to use a non-root user, but that solves some X problems. I think in this or one case a file just went corrupt so the reinstall solved it. If it was a problem with root sometimes the solution is to 'export DISPLAY=0:0.0.'