tty display corrupt after kill X, slack 10.1

nadroj · 09-08-2005, 10:02 PM

when i log out of KDE to exit X and return to the tty0 console the display is corrupt and unreadable.
well, i dunno if corrupt, but definetly unreadable. i have a 17" monitor and when it returns to the console what it seems to display is the console text, but like 3 lines, stretched to fit onto a 17" monitor. the colour is distorted.. it seems as if its zoomed it a huge amount, the letters are unreadable and are very pixelized.. they look orange and white with other colours.

i have an nvidia card and have installed the driver long ago, and edited /etc/X11/xorg.conf as necessary. i have checked dmesg, /var/log/Xorg log, and /var/log/messages.. but not really sure what to look for, and havent found anything that looked related.

when i go kill X to return to terminal, the only thing i can do is ctrl alt del to reboot.. but that usually doesnt even work and i have to manually press reset.. so i dont know if it is being saved to whatever appropriate log, so it may not be showing up.

any hints appreciated, will gladly post info if necessary

edit: heres afew things, if it helps:

Code:

Section "Screen"
    Identifier  "Screen 1"
    Device      "** NVIDIA (generic)                   [nv]"
    Monitor     "My Monitor"
    DefaultDepth 24

    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       8
        Modes                  "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        ViewPort    0 0
    EndSubsection
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       16
        Modes                   "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        ViewPort    0 0
    EndSubsection
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       24
        Modes                   "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        ViewPort    0 0
    EndSubsection
EndSection

Code:

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "** NVIDIA (generic)                   [nv]"
    Driver      "nvidia"
    VideoRam    131072
    # Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate
EndSection

my monitor refresh rates i set during xorgconfig are correct also

also, ever since iv installed slack, every now and then (maybe once every hour or two (?), the computer would freeze/stop responding for like 7 seconds.. then work again for split second.. then freeze for another 4 seconds or so, then go back to normal.
in the logs i have checked there is ALOT of repetition with usb/hotplug messages, even though i dont have anything usb.

Half_Elf · 09-08-2005, 11:02 PM

What's your video card? I have the same problem about a Nvidia 32MB Geforce2 MX.. the driver is somehow buggy

nadroj · 09-08-2005, 11:08 PM

well as i stated i have an nvidia card, and all nvidia cards use the same driver (howerver it is the i32 based one) so i didnt specify.. but i have a Geforce 5200FX, 128mb agp.
i dont recall having this problem when i first tested 10.0 or 10.1.. however, i didnt understand much when i initially had them so i probably wasnt logged on long enough to notice

well at least im not the only one..

Thanks for the input though

edit:
im pretty sure it has to do with the resolution, though.. you know how you boot up and it displays the penguin top left? thats only on what, > 1024 resolutions? i think when i didnt have it setup that way then i could go from terminal to X and back with no problems.

which part of /etc/X11/xorg.conf u think id have to change for that? obviously one of the quotes i posted with the listing of resolutions (id think), but which one?

Half_Elf · 09-08-2005, 11:11 PM

the driver 3363 was the only one I was able to use without any bugs... sadly it doesn't compile on newer (> 2.6.7 ??) kernel so I had to dump nvidia drivers. I use "nv" now the default driver... good enought, but very few 3d support.

Half_Elf · 09-08-2005, 11:17 PM

Quote:

edit:
im pretty sure it has to do with the resolution, though.. you know how you boot up and it displays the penguin top left? thats only on what, > 1024 resolutions? i think when i didnt have it setup that way then i could go from terminal to X and back with no problems.

which part of /etc/X11/xorg.conf u think id have to change for that? obviously one of the quotes i posted with the listing of resolutions (id think), but which one?

The penguin could appears in resolution lower than 1024 as well... if you want to turn this off, change "vga=XXX" by "vga=normal" in your /etc/lilo.conf file, then type "lilo" (assuming you use lilo... I don't know much about grub). Normal is the usual 80x25 lines terminal display.
If you want to change the X resolution, you probably need to change the last (24 bits) one, as it is usually the default xorg use. But it has nothing with the penguin or the "text mode" display you get on boot. Tty display ("text mode") is supported by another, kernel level, driver named "vesa". It can't use Nvidia (or at least it shouldn't, as the nvidia support in kernel for tty is buggy as hell) nor xorg drivers. On the other hand, xorg could use Vesa driver.

nadroj · 09-08-2005, 11:21 PM

ah.. thats right. i couldnt remember where i seen it. i thought it was during xorgconfig setup that i saw that question asked if i wanted that, but yes your right it was in lilo (and i do use lilo) setup. Thanks.

which file would control the resolution of my tty's? you mentioned the lilo.conf file, but i thought that would just be for the initial boot loader screen.. the setting for the terminal resolution shouldnt be in there.. or is it? ill go check now, but if not, then where else should i check?

would it have something to do with X using nvidia driver then when i logout something screws up and it somehow wants to use both drivers at same time or smething?

edit:
ok, well i have it set to:

Code:

# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x256
vga = 773

right now, so ill try the vga = normal setting and reboot.

nadroj · 09-08-2005, 11:36 PM

Success.

i did that, rebooted, loaded XFCE, exited, and im now in KDE after loading it from the terminal! Thanks alot .5-Elf.