Black screen at booting after driver change

Noobtopro · 03-12-2016, 10:53 AM

Hi there. I'm pretty new with linux so pls be patient

. So i changed my craphig card recently and I had no problems with it. I used nvidia-304 driver and it worked very well but now I changed it to xcorg-video driver because I wanted to test one thing with it. Problem started when I restarted my pc after changing the driver and I get black screen after the linux mint logo. I pressed ctrl alt f1 and typed "Display" and got error saying "unable to open xserver" I have no idea what to do. I did some research and tried some things but none of them worked. I'm using linux mint 17.2 cinnamon 64bit. Thank you if you have a patient to help a noob

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ButterflyMelissa · 03-13-2016, 05:32 AM

Hi there,
Welcome to the forum, I hope we can help you...a lot

And...

Quote:

I'm pretty new with linux

...most of us are, Linux is way too extensive to just know everything.
Okay...a few things here, what distro do you use? Can you use the CLI (text mode) all the way?
For purposes, all Xorg related settings are stored in xorg.conf, the exact location may differ( hence the question what the distro used is...), one way to "rescue" the settings is to issue this command (Root access requird of course):

Code:

Xorg -configure

...the system will leave a fresh config file in the root folder (at login, it should have placed you there)
to test the fresh config, issue this

Code:

Xorg -config /root/xorg.conf.new

You should get some results...well, a blank screen...but...no errors...
More info at this page...
Let us know where the eagle landed

Melissa
By the way, with this command:

Code:

pwd

you get info on where you are in the system

malekmustaq · 03-13-2016, 06:13 AM

Quote:

Problem started when I restarted my pc after changing the driver and I get black screen after the linux mint logo. I pressed ctrl alt f1 and typed "Display" and got error saying "unable to open xserver"

Hi, you should try what ButterflyMelissa hinted above. If doing so still no improvement, then there is possibility of driver contention. In this case you may disable or "blacklist" the nvidia module to give way to xorg module/driver. Whatever nvidia driver you use you may

Code:

touch /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist_nvidia.conf
echo "blacklist nvidia" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist_nvidia.conf

Another possibility is to install xorg-vesa driver you can get it here.

Keeping an xinitrc in your home folder makes it sure that windowing manager runs and there is no black screen to occur. Check if you have cinammon

Code:

less .xinitrc'

it should return something 'cinammon' whatever it is (I don't run Mint anymore) good luck. Be sure to execute your window manager at $HOME/.xinitrc.

Hope that helps. Good luck and enjoy.

m.m.

Noobtopro · 03-13-2016, 06:21 AM

Hi Melissa and thank you very much for answering

. I use linux mint 17 Qiana if I understood that question right. I logged in as a root and typed "Xorg -configure" command and I got as a output :"Fatal server error: (EE) Server is already active for display 0 if this server is no longer running, remove /tmp/.XO-lock and start again." also I ran the another command to test the config I got the exact same answer.

Noobtopro · 03-13-2016, 06:48 AM

Thank you malekmustaq for your answer aswell. I tried blacklisting the nvidia module but that didn't fix it. This may be a stupid question but how can I install the xorg vesa driver if I can't acces to internet or can I? I can only use the commandline that opens with ctrl+alt+f1

Emerson · 03-13-2016, 07:25 AM

Quote:

remove /tmp/.XO-lock and start again

.......

Noobtopro · 03-13-2016, 08:00 AM

How do I remove the XO-lock?

Emerson · 03-13-2016, 08:06 AM

I'd try with rm command.

Noobtopro · 03-13-2016, 09:31 AM

Well I removed that now and I also remove Xauthority file but what I do now? That didn't fix the problem.

Noobtopro · 03-13-2016, 09:50 AM

After removing those files I tried "startx --:1" command and got some text and at the end there were "server terminated with error (1). Closing log file. Invalid MIT-MACIG-COOKIE-1 keyinit: giving up
Keyxinit: unable to connect to X server: Resource temporarily unavailable
Keyxinit: server error

ButterflyMelissa · 03-13-2016, 10:55 AM

okay...

Quote:

Fatal server error: (EE) Server is already active for display 0 if this server is no longer running, remove /tmp/.XO-lock and start again."

This means that X is up and running, yet, not productive...
you need to stop the X-server first...
See if it is'nt still running...

Code:

ps -A

then look for "Xorg", enter this

Code:

pkill Xorg

thjen run the configuration again...
Of course, X cannot reconfigure if it's running...

Melissa

Noobtopro · 03-13-2016, 01:14 PM

Ok I 'm getting closer now

. I did the pkill xorg thing and then suddendly the login screen jumped in. Then I tried to login but no
. Black screen again. Then I killed Xorg again and tried reconfing but then I got same black screen but this time there isn't even cursor visible.

Noobtopro · 03-13-2016, 01:21 PM

It seems like when I kill the Xorg it starts itself again

Noobtopro · 03-13-2016, 01:36 PM

After that I looked the commandline and it looked like it was stuck on "loading extension glx"

Emerson · 03-13-2016, 01:56 PM

The log file you should be looking at is /var/log/Xorg.0.log