LinuxQuestions.org - [SOLVED] AAAArrrrggh!

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- - AAAArrrrggh! (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-hardware-18/aaaarrrrggh-824643/)

I'm about ready to pull my hair out.

I decided to put a Radeon 8500DV card in my Slackware box. Works fine with the Vesa driver. Problem is, I'm using a widescreen monitor, and Vesa doesn't support my default resolution (1366x768). So I thought I'd do a little editing in my xorg.conf file and fix it right up.

I logged on as root, and did "X -configure", then I went in and edited the file it made me and put in the appropriate values for my monitor and resolution. And then it copied it over my xorg.conf file, and typed startx. Voila! Looked great, and I checked the settings to be sure I was in 1366x768. It worked fine!

Once.

Then I logged out and tried "startx" with my user account. As soon as I do, my monitor displays "No Signal"... weird - cause it just worked. So I rebooted, and logged on as root, and tried startx again. "No Signal"

So why would it work just once and not again. I tried repeating my steps exactly, and still can't get it to come up. Arrrgh.

Here is the xorg.conf I used when it did work:

Quote:

Originally Posted by xorg.conf

Section "Files"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/local"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/TTF"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/OTF"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/CID"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/cyrillic"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "extmod"
Load "dri"
Load "glx"
Load "dbe"
Load "dri2"
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"
#DisplaySize 340 190 # mm
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "ACR"
ModelName "Acer X163W"
HorizSync 30.0 - 60.0
VertRefresh 55.0 - 60.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "radeon"
VendorName "Unknown Vendor"
BoardName "Unknown Board"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Card1"
Driver "radeon"
VendorName "Unknown Vendor"
BoardName "Unknown Board"
BusID "PCI:1:0:1"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 15
Modes "1366x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 16
Modes "1366x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1366x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen1"
Device "Card1"
Monitor "Monitor0"
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 15
Modes "1366x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 16
Modes "1366x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1366x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection

and here is my lspci:

Quote:

Originally Posted by lspci

root@deanmachine10:/home/deanj20# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8375 [KM266/KL266] Host Bridge
00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8633 [Apollo Pro266 AGP]
00:0b.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)
00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)
00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)
00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 82)
00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8235 ISA Bridge
00:11.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 50)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc R200 BB [Radeon All in Wonder 8500DV]
root@deanmachine10:/home/deanj20#

Any ideas? I tried removing the Card1 and Screen1 sections (since they are invalid), but that made no difference.

I'd really appreciate any help. This thing looks like crap in 1024x768 - everything is oblong and uggers.

Thanks!

I haven't had two different 'Section "Screen"' sections before, using defaults or Xorg -configure, but the one thing I see missing is:
Right under 'Monitor "Monitor0"' or 'Section "Screen"' you could try "DefaultDepth 24".

I'm not sure about this solution, but I think it could be the problem.

Quote:

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 15
Modes "1366x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 16
Modes "1366x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1366x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen1"
Device "Card1"
Monitor "Monitor0"
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 15
Modes "1366x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 16
Modes "1366x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1366x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection

I don't understand why this is there twice, but if for some reason it should be, just use "DefaultDepth 24" in both. The way I've always done it is to put it right under the 'Monitor "Monitor0"', as far as I remember. Putting it right under the 'Section "Screen"' might not be right, but I'm sure I've always had it right under 'Monitor "Monitor0"'.
I can't tell by your pasted configuration if it would be the same to put it right under 'Section "Screen"' but I know it works properly right under 'Monitor "Monitor0"'.

It's either supposed to be lined up with:

Quote:

Identifier "Screen1"
Device "Card1"
Monitor "Monitor0"

or just:

Quote:

Device "Card1"
Monitor "Monitor0"

I can't think of how they're indented, and I'm using Ubuntu now and it doesn't give me a full xorg.conf file that has these sections.

You forgot the section ServerLayout. Using the vesa driver will work with any resolution, but only if you specify a modeline. Use the utility gtf to help generate a modeline with the desire resolution and refresh rate. The modelines goes into the Monitor section.

Add the following to /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Code:

Section "ServerLayout"

    Identifier    "Default"

    Screen    0  "Screen0"

    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"

    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"

EndSection

Does help to include DefaultDepth to the Screen section, so you can tell Xorg to use a certain color depth instead whatever it thinks it should be default which might be 15-bit color depth.

BTW, Do not use quote to post code. Use code to post code.

I remember having everything but DefaultDepth in xorg.conf before, and having it not work until I added it.

To the OP.... If you are using Slackware 13.*, does X start up if you just remove /etc/X11/xorg.conf and then simply startx?

Adam

Quote:

Originally Posted by prdeltoid (Post 4058220)

In my xorg.conf with the nvidia driver, DefaultDepth 24 is listed in the Screen section:

Code:

Section "Screen"

    Identifier    "Screen0"

    Device        "Device0"

    Monitor        "Monitor0"

    DefaultDepth    24

    SubSection    "Display"

        Depth      24

    EndSubSection

EndSection

This is om Slackware 13.1.

Thanks for the replies everybody.

I've tried adding default depth, and a number of other things. I'll get it to work once in a while, but it always works just once... must be some sort of bug in either the driver or X itself... I don't know... I'm fed up with it...

I pulled the card out of there and I'm just going to run onboard at 1024x768... it's just a web and file server anyhow, so I seldom even use X. It would have been nice to get it to run right... but meh...

Thanks again!

Did you try the xf86-video-ati driver?

It's open-source and has quite good 3D acceleration by now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MTK358 (Post 4059730)

Did you try the xf86-video-ati driver?

It's open-source and has quite good 3D acceleration by now.

According to his xorg.conf file, that's what he's using.

Adam

But he says he's using vesa?

Good point.

I'd still really like to see what happens when he starts X without an xorg.conf file at all.

Adam

Hey guys,

No, I was using the radeon driver, as seen in the above posted xorg.conf:

Code:

Section "Device"

Identifier "Card0"

Driver "radeon"

VendorName "Unknown Vendor"

BoardName "Unknown Board"

BusID "PCI:1:0:0"

EndSection



Section "Device"

Identifier "Card1"

Driver "radeon"

VendorName "Unknown Vendor"

BoardName "Unknown Board"

BusID "PCI:1:0:1"

EndSection

What I was saying is that X works fine with the VESA driver, but doesn't support 1366x768 (or wouldn't work when I put that resolution in the Modes section anyhow)...

Anyway, I honestly believe it's a bug with the driver, since it would work once, and then, after one logout, not changing anything, it wouldn't work again... I got sick of messing with it...

But then I dug up an nVidia GeForce FX 5900... I ran of "X -configure" as root, then went in and modded the file it made for me a little (put the correct frequencies and resolution, got rid of all the extra nonsense)... worked first try... and continues to work, as it should...

Thanks for all the help!

BTW, if anyone is interested, here is my working xorg.conf for the nVidia card:

Code:

Section "Files"

        ModulePath  "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"

        FontPath    "/usr/share/fonts/local"

        FontPath    "/usr/share/fonts/TTF"

        FontPath    "/usr/share/fonts/OTF"

        FontPath    "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"

        FontPath    "/usr/share/fonts/misc"

        FontPath    "/usr/share/fonts/CID"

        FontPath    "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"

        FontPath    "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"

        FontPath    "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi"

        FontPath    "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi"

        FontPath    "/usr/share/fonts/cyrillic"

EndSection



Section "Module"

        Load  "extmod"

        Load  "dri"

        Load  "glx"

        Load  "dbe"

        Load  "dri2"

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"

        #DisplaySize          340  190        # mm

        Identifier  "Monitor0"

        VendorName  "ACR"

        ModelName    "Acer X163W"

        HorizSync    35.0 - 60.0

        VertRefresh  50.0 - 60.0

        Option            "DPMS"

EndSection



Section "Device"

        Identifier  "Card0"

        Driver      "nv"

        VendorName  "Unknown Vendor"

        BoardName  "Unknown Board"

        BusID      "PCI:1:0:0"

EndSection



Section "Screen"

        Identifier "Screen0"

        Device    "Card0"

        Monitor    "Monitor0"



        SubSection "Display"

                Viewport  0 0

                Depth    24

                Modes "1366x768"

        EndSubSection

        

EndSection

Oh, and

Quote:

Originally Posted by adamk75

I'd still really like to see what happens when he starts X without an xorg.conf file at all.

Tried it out for you. It just returns a "No Screens Found" error - as there aren't any defined in the xorg.conf file, since it doesn't exist...

Cheers!

On any reasonably up-to-date linux distribution, running X without an xorg.conf should work just fine with the open source drivers, at least on one monitor, which makes me think there's something wrong with your installation if X is completely failing, but I'd need to see the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file that was generated to know exactly what happened.

Adam

Well, I believe my installation is fine, since I have no other problems whatsoever. The radeon driver clearly has some issue with the Radeon 8500DV.

As for what's supposed to happen when you try to run X with no xorg.conf, well, I would expect it to work too. Evidently it's generating some bad parameters for my hardware - I notice that when I run "X -configure", I have to go in and make some changes to the file generated. The frequencies for the monitor are wrong, and it doesn't detect what this monitors default resolution should be.

Anyway, I'm just happy to have it working normally and without trouble with the nVidia card.

The distro is Slackware 13.0

Here's the end of /var/log/Xorg.0.log when I try to run X with no xorg.conf:

Code:

ATI Radeon Graphics

(II) Primary Device is: PCI 01@00:00:0

(EE) No devices detected.



Fatal server error:

no screens found



Please consult the The X.Org Foundation support 

        at http://wiki.x.org

 for help. 

Please also check the log file at "/var/log/Xorg.0.log" for additional information.

The full file can be seen here:
http://jeremydean.co.nr/temp/Xorg.0.log

Thanks for the help.