Hi

I have a problem with an Acer Aspire one running linpus linux. I get a black screen with a white mouse pointer at startup. I don't know how this happened. I can interrupt the startup process with ^c and then see the following amongst other text :
Loading x11 FronEnd module...
Failed to laod x11 FrontEnd module
Failed to launch SCIM.

Can anybody help please?

Is this a fresh install, or did it work at some point and is not working now?

Hi alex DC. Thanks for the post. It's not a new install. It has been working for over a year, then suddenly this happenned. I had the netbook connected to an external monitor and when I was switching between external and internal screens it went wrong.

Edit: Before you try anything below, Linpus looks like it may have a rather unqiue setup. I can probably help you troubleshoot, but have you tried contacting Linpus tech support? They may prove more helpful.


OK. Couple of basic things.

1. Did this just start happening when you connected the external monitor?

2. Is it happening with BOTH monitors, or just the external?

3. Did you install any new software/drivers just before the problem occured, or did you run any updates just before it happened?

4. (If you have any idea what this means) Is X booting in a daemonized fashion, or are you booting via runlevel 5 (or whatever runlevel you distribution uses for X)?



If the answer to 1 is yes, or the problem just occurs with the external: have you tried unplugging the external and rebooting?

Hi Alex DC. The answer to 1 is no, 2 is yes, 3 is no and I am afraid I don't understand 4. Thanks for all your helpful suggestions. I have something I would like to run by you. I have two of these Acer Aspire one netbooks, both running Linpus Linux. I was thinking about trying to get a system image of the working one and restoring it to the broken one. I have been looking around on the web and have come across this utility here http://ping.windowsdream.com/cgi-bin/download.pl. Being a novice with Linpus, I don't know if this will work. My gut feeling tells me since the hardware is identical and spec of both machines is the same, I should be able to do it by creating an image of one on a USB stick and restoring it to the other. I don't have any data on either that I want to keep. However, I have a nagging feeling that this is not a serious problem and may be possible to fix by editing an XML file, but I haven't the faintest idea what has changed with the system to give me this problem.

That may work, however I have never used the program, so I couldn't tell you anything more specific.

Your problem stems from one of two things from what you have told me. Either

A) somehow a necessary X module was deleted (or an update rendered it unusable, which seems unlikely if yo have run any updates lately)

or

B) somehow a configuration file was modified improperly, either directing X to an improper module, or keeping the proper module from being detected by X

From your original post you said that SCIM was failing to load. While that would cause some problems, from what I know that shouldn't cause the problem you described.

I would tell you to go just ahead and re-install the SCIM modules and see if that somehow fixed your problem (doubtful), but seeing as how you can't do anything with a blank screen, that would be difficult.

More likely another X module needs to be re-installed, but I couldn't tell you which module as I don't know that much about Linpus or the Acer Aspire One. And again, there is the issue of how to even install the module when you can't see anything.

One thing that I forgot to ask in my previous post, when your system fully boots, will pressing ctrl+alt+f1 (or f2 - f5) bring up a tty (comand line) or some type of messages? If one of those brigns up a log-in prompt try logging in and typing the command "links" or "lynx" or "elniks". All three are command line based web-browsers which could help the process. Do any of those commands do anything (if your screen goes blank, that's a good thing)?

Finally, you didn't answer the beginning portion of my last post: Linpus has tech support, have you tried contacting them?

While all while Linpus is just like any other Linux to a certain extent, there are differences between every distribution that would make someone with specific knowledge far more helpful. Anyone on these forums not experienced with Linpus specifically will only be able to help you generally and to a certain extent. As Linpus does not appear to have a LiveCD, troubleshooting may become tedious if the problem is anymore than a simple one, as there would be no way for someone (such as myself) to see how Linpus is specifically setup without asking you to post the output of of possible dozens of commands. And even that would be a bit of shooting in the dark, because anyone who wasn't familiar with the set up of Linpus would only have a vague idea of what they were looking for to begin with.

Also, as Linpus seems to be designed (almost) specifically for the Acer Aspire One, tech support may be able to almost immeadiately identify your problem and tell you how to solve it.

Finally, something like PING may be a faster and easier solution, but if you choose to go that route make sure you CAREFULLY read the documentation before implementing such a solution. Creating a partition image, for example, is usually done for backup purposes and made to be used IF YOU HAVE TO, not for your intent. That is not to discourage from going this route, but I want to warn you to be cautious and not jump into anything hastily without understanding what you are doing.

Hi alex_DC. Thanks for all the time and effort you have taken with this. I will be contacting Linpus support and will let you know how I get on.

If you need any help from there, feel free to ask.

Hi. I tried another thing and it worked. I got hold of an external usb optical drive and restore the system from the Linpus Cd as provided by Acer. It worked. Now going through adding all the things like Skype that I need.

Cheers and thanks for all your help and advice.

D

Ah, I didn't realize you had a cd. Glad that worked. Honestly in your position, it was probably the best move, as troubleshooting your exactly problem may have entailed a good deal of frustration.