LinuxQuestions.org
Visit Jeremy's Blog.
Go Back   LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Linux Forums > Linux - General
User Name
Password
Linux - General This Linux forum is for general Linux questions and discussion.
If it is Linux Related and doesn't seem to fit in any other forum then this is the place.

Notices


Reply
  Search this Thread
Old 01-16-2010, 11:57 AM   #1
Mustafa Ismail Mustafa
Member
 
Registered: Nov 2009
Location: Amman, Jordan
Distribution: Ubuntu 10.04, CentOS 5.5, FreeBSD 7.2, Debian Squeeze, PC-BSD 8
Posts: 44

Rep: Reputation: 0
Can't get CentOS 5.4 x64 GUI to run


Trying to install CentOS 5.4 x64 on my I7 as a workstation, I'm having 2 issues.

1. I can't seem to get grub to boot directly to the GUI
2. There are GUI issues. Running startx gives me a black screen and in fact, my monitor goes off which tells me its not getting a signal from the graphics card (Nvidia GeForce 9600)

I tried following this post: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...fedora-566100/ but I could not find any errors and indeed checking the log file provides no errors.

I'm not a total newbie, but certainly not a linux expert so any help with this will be great

The reason I want to stick with x64 is because I have 8GB of RAM I want to take advantage of because a lot of stuff will be virtualized. If it makes any difference, I do not have any virtualization packages installed.

TIA
 
Old 01-16-2010, 12:02 PM   #2
amani
Senior Member
 
Registered: Jul 2006
Location: Kolkata, India
Distribution: Debian 64-bit GNU/Linux, Kubuntu64, Fedora QA, Slackware,
Posts: 2,766

Rep: Reputation: Disabled
use the driver nouveau or nv

use a boot time parameter to blacklist nv to start with

else
you need to edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf


#vim /etc/X11/xorg.conf
 
Old 01-16-2010, 12:04 PM   #3
Mustafa Ismail Mustafa
Member
 
Registered: Nov 2009
Location: Amman, Jordan
Distribution: Ubuntu 10.04, CentOS 5.5, FreeBSD 7.2, Debian Squeeze, PC-BSD 8
Posts: 44

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 0
how would I use the nv driver? And if I were to edit Xorg.conf, where would I stick that?
 
Old 01-16-2010, 12:10 PM   #4
Mustafa Ismail Mustafa
Member
 
Registered: Nov 2009
Location: Amman, Jordan
Distribution: Ubuntu 10.04, CentOS 5.5, FreeBSD 7.2, Debian Squeeze, PC-BSD 8
Posts: 44

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 0
Just checked xorg.conf and the driver in use is nv with vendor name nVidia Corporation however, the boardname is "Unkown Board"
 
Old 01-16-2010, 12:16 PM   #5
amani
Senior Member
 
Registered: Jul 2006
Location: Kolkata, India
Distribution: Debian 64-bit GNU/Linux, Kubuntu64, Fedora QA, Slackware,
Posts: 2,766

Rep: Reputation: Disabled
/etc/X11/xorg.conf

change nv to nouveau

with vim or a live cd

otherwise it seems ok

#vim /etc/X11/xorg.conf

vim

alt-i (for insert)
ctrl-w write
ctrl-q quit
 
Old 01-16-2010, 12:21 PM   #6
pixellany
LQ Veteran
 
Registered: Nov 2005
Location: Annapolis, MD
Distribution: Mint
Posts: 17,809

Rep: Reputation: 743Reputation: 743Reputation: 743Reputation: 743Reputation: 743Reputation: 743Reputation: 743
VendorName and BoardName are not required at all---I think all you really need are "Identifier" and "Driver".

Have you tried using the vesa driver?

No error messages in /var/log/Xorg.0.log?
 
Old 01-16-2010, 01:12 PM   #7
AlucardZero
Senior Member
 
Registered: May 2006
Location: USA
Distribution: Debian
Posts: 4,824

Rep: Reputation: 615Reputation: 615Reputation: 615Reputation: 615Reputation: 615Reputation: 615
Quote:
vim

alt-i (for insert)
ctrl-w write
ctrl-q quit
Sure you're not thinking of nano? That should be

vim
i
<make edits>
ESC
:wq
 
Old 01-17-2010, 03:28 AM   #8
Mustafa Ismail Mustafa
Member
 
Registered: Nov 2009
Location: Amman, Jordan
Distribution: Ubuntu 10.04, CentOS 5.5, FreeBSD 7.2, Debian Squeeze, PC-BSD 8
Posts: 44

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 0
OK, I altered the driver from nv to nouveau (why new in French?) and typing startx after gives this:

Code:
xauth:  creating new authority file /root/.serverauth.4457


X Window System Version 7.1.1
Release Date: 12 May 2006
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0, Release 7.1.1
Build Operating System: Linux 2.6.18-53.el5 x86_64 Red Hat, Inc.
Current Operating System: Linux NvCentos 2.6.18-164.el5 #1 SMP Thu Sep 3 03:28:30 EDT 2009 x86_64
Build Date: 03 September 2009
Build ID: xorg-x11-server 1.1.1-48.67.el5 
	Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
	to make sure that you have the latest version.
Module Loader present
Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting,
	(++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational,
	(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Sun Jan 17 10:16:42 2010
(==) Using config file: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf"
(EE) Failed to load module "nouveau" (module does not exist, 0)
(EE) No drivers available.

Fatal server error:
no screens found
XIO:  fatal IO error 104 (Connection reset by peer) on X server ":0.0"
      after 0 requests (0 known processed) with 0 events remaining.

No errors (other than the black screen) when I tried it (by reverting back to nv)
(output with the driver set to nv)
Code:
xauth:  creating new authority file /root/.serverauth.4488


X Window System Version 7.1.1
Release Date: 12 May 2006
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0, Release 7.1.1
Build Operating System: Linux 2.6.18-53.el5 x86_64 Red Hat, Inc.
Current Operating System: Linux NvCentos 2.6.18-164.el5 #1 SMP Thu Sep 3 03:28:30 EDT 2009 x86_64
Build Date: 03 September 2009
Build ID: xorg-x11-server 1.1.1-48.67.el5 
	Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
	to make sure that you have the latest version.
Module Loader present
Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting,
	(++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational,
	(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Sun Jan 17 10:17:39 2010
(==) Using config file: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf"
**********
(its actually still running and control has still not been returned to the command line)
**********


I logged in from another computer and caught all this. I didn't know how to stop the X server from the command line and Ctrl + Alt + Backspace didn't work so I rebooted.

Here's my xorg.conf file:

Code:
cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier     "X.org Configured"
	Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
	InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
	InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Files"
	RgbPath      "/usr/share/X11/rgb"
	ModulePath   "/usr/lib64/xorg/modules"
	FontPath     "unix/:7100"
	FontPath     "built-ins"
EndSection

Section "Module"
	Load  "dbe"
	Load  "glx"
	Load  "xtrap"
	Load  "record"
	Load  "vnc"
	Load  "extmod"
	Load  "dri"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier  "Keyboard0"
	Driver      "kbd"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier  "Mouse0"
	Driver      "mouse"
	Option	    "Protocol" "auto"
	Option	    "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
	Option	    "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "Monitor0"
	VendorName   "Monitor Vendor"
	ModelName    "Monitor Model"
EndSection

Section "Device"
        ### Available Driver options are:-
        ### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
        ### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz"
        ### [arg]: arg optional
        #Option     "SWcursor"           	# [<bool>]
        #Option     "HWcursor"           	# [<bool>]
        #Option     "NoAccel"            	# [<bool>]
        #Option     "ShadowFB"           	# [<bool>]
        #Option     "UseFBDev"           	# [<bool>]
        #Option     "Rotate"             	# [<str>]
        #Option     "VideoKey"           	# <i>
        #Option     "FlatPanel"          	# [<bool>]
        #Option     "FPDither"           	# [<bool>]
        #Option     "CrtcNumber"         	# <i>
        #Option     "FPScale"            	# [<bool>]
        #Option     "FPTweak"            	# <i>
        #Option     "DualHead"           	# [<bool>]
	Identifier  "Card0"
	Driver      "nv"
	VendorName  "nVidia Corporation"
	BoardName   "Unknown Board"
	BusID       "PCI:2:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "Screen0"
	Device     "Card0"
	Monitor    "Monitor0"
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     1
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     4
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     8
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     15
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     16
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
	EndSubSection
EndSection

I really appreciate all the help, thanks guys

Last edited by Mustafa Ismail Mustafa; 01-17-2010 at 03:29 AM. Reason: typo
 
Old 01-17-2010, 05:13 AM   #9
Mustafa Ismail Mustafa
Member
 
Registered: Nov 2009
Location: Amman, Jordan
Distribution: Ubuntu 10.04, CentOS 5.5, FreeBSD 7.2, Debian Squeeze, PC-BSD 8
Posts: 44

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 0
OK, being a little less pressed for time today, I manged to get it to work.

I followed this: http://www.linwik.com/wiki/configuri...tos+and+rhel+5

and then I changed the inittab to boot straight into the GUI. Works

Only questions now are:

1. Why did all this happen? Driver issues?
2. Yes, CentOS now boots straight to the GUI (stage 5) but along the way, it shows the text based log in screen before it flashes on to the GUI based one, is there a way to skip that? Purely aesthetic by the way.

Thanks for everyone!
 
Old 01-17-2010, 11:27 AM   #10
amani
Senior Member
 
Registered: Jul 2006
Location: Kolkata, India
Distribution: Debian 64-bit GNU/Linux, Kubuntu64, Fedora QA, Slackware,
Posts: 2,766

Rep: Reputation: Disabled
Quote:
Originally Posted by AlucardZero View Post
Sure you're not thinking of nano? That should be

vim
i
<make edits>
ESC
:wq
yes what you have written is correct ... I wrote it in a hurry

Last edited by amani; 01-17-2010 at 11:29 AM.
 
Old 01-17-2010, 11:57 AM   #11
johnsfine
LQ Guru
 
Registered: Dec 2007
Distribution: Centos
Posts: 5,286

Rep: Reputation: 1197Reputation: 1197Reputation: 1197Reputation: 1197Reputation: 1197Reputation: 1197Reputation: 1197Reputation: 1197Reputation: 1197
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mustafa Ismail Mustafa View Post
Thanks for the link. I probably will need that for a Centos system at some point.

Quote:
1. Why did all this happen? Driver issues?
You changed from the nv driver to the nvidia driver.

In my experience, the nv driver rarely works. It usually acts as you described.

I never heard of the "nouveau" driver mentioned earlier in this thread.

The "vesa" driver usually works for nVidia cards with moderate flaws (such as not supporting all the resolution choices it ought to support).

The "nvidia" driver is not open source, so it cannot be included in pure open source distributions or repositories.

In most cases, the "nvidia" driver does the best job of supporting an nVidia card.

I'm currently trying to gather all the right supporting data to post a decent question myself about configuring an NVIDIA graphics card. That system is Mepis. The "nv" driver fails as it did for you. The "vesa" driver can't see any modeline for 1920x1200 even though that is one of the modes included by the Vesa support on the card and it is a mode reported by the LCD panel to the driver and it is a modeline that I manually edited into the monitor section of xorg.conf. The "vesa" driver reports all available resolutions as 86Hz refresh even though the xorg.conf and the LCD panel both tell it the max refresh is 82Hz. The Mepis X-Window assistant installs the "nvidia" driver in a way that fails when X starts. The driver installer (.run file) from nVidia's web page installs the "nvidia" driver differently and also fails when X starts.


On Centos systems, I rarely use the console (I use putty or xwindows across the lan). So when the "nv" driver fails, I switch it "vesa" and use whatever wrong resolution or other flaws that gives for my rare uses of the console. I never learned how to add the "nvidia" driver on Centos (though I've done that many times and ways in Debian and Mepis). But in this thread, I think you told me how for Centos.

Last edited by johnsfine; 01-17-2010 at 12:16 PM.
 
Old 01-18-2010, 10:36 AM   #12
amani
Senior Member
 
Registered: Jul 2006
Location: Kolkata, India
Distribution: Debian 64-bit GNU/Linux, Kubuntu64, Fedora QA, Slackware,
Posts: 2,766

Rep: Reputation: Disabled
Quote:
Originally Posted by johnsfine View Post
You changed from the nv driver to the nvidia driver.

In my experience, the nv driver rarely works. It usually acts as you described.

I never heard of the "nouveau" driver mentioned earlier in this thread.

The "vesa" driver usually works for nVidia cards with moderate flaws (such as not supporting all the resolution choices it ought to support).

The "nvidia" driver is not open source, so it cannot be included in pure open source distributions or repositories.

In most cases, the "nvidia" driver does the best job of supporting an nVidia card.

I'm currently trying to gather all the right supporting data to post a decent question myself about configuring an NVIDIA graphics card. That system is Mepis. The "nv" driver fails as it did for you. The "vesa" driver can't see any modeline for 1920x1200 even though that is one of the modes included by the Vesa support on the card and it is a mode reported by the LCD panel to the driver and it is a modeline that I manually edited into the monitor section of xorg.conf. The "vesa" driver reports all available resolutions as 86Hz refresh even though the xorg.conf and the LCD panel both tell it the max refresh is 82Hz. The Mepis X-Window assistant installs the "nvidia" driver in a way that fails when X starts. The driver installer (.run file) from nVidia's web page installs the "nvidia" driver differently and also fails when X starts.

In recent Fedora, the default is nouveau. But if 'system-config-display' is installed, then nv gets activated and this results in a conflict. So it is for CentOS-5.4

The proprietary driver may fail any time.

The correct way to check (and write any xorg.conf) is to look the X log files
 
Old 01-19-2010, 02:03 AM   #13
Mustafa Ismail Mustafa
Member
 
Registered: Nov 2009
Location: Amman, Jordan
Distribution: Ubuntu 10.04, CentOS 5.5, FreeBSD 7.2, Debian Squeeze, PC-BSD 8
Posts: 44

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 0
Quote:
Originally Posted by amani View Post
The proprietary driver may fail any time.
Why is that? Since the issue has been resolved, it has worked like a charm (knock on wood).

I've installed a zillion things and must have restarted the system a few dozen times along with a few hundred MBs of updates and installs. VMs work like clockwork too.
 
  


Reply


Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off



Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Error in install DazukoFS on CentOs 5.3 x64 Cyber-DL Linux - Software 1 07-30-2009 09:45 PM
what is GPT, and other partitioning questions (centos x64, large RAID array) whysyn Linux - Hardware 3 04-29-2009 09:43 PM
Yum Issues Centos 4.4 x64 karuptdata Linux - Server 1 12-07-2008 04:32 PM
Errors building WINE 0.9.53 from source on CentOS x64 Micro420 Linux - Software 4 01-14-2008 01:15 PM
can i run linux mandriver x64 with windows x64 bit if so wich one should i install fi malmac2000 Linux - Software 2 04-26-2006 08:04 AM

LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Linux Forums > Linux - General

All times are GMT -5. The time now is 05:31 PM.

Main Menu
Advertisement
My LQ
Write for LQ
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute content, let us know.
Main Menu
Syndicate
RSS1  Latest Threads
RSS1  LQ News
Twitter: @linuxquestions
Open Source Consulting | Domain Registration