Wow, I know exactly what happened to you, it happens to so many people. Forget about all the other stuff that happened afterward and remember one thing, anytime you edit XF86Config, XF86Config-4 or xorg.conf or run a config program that does it for you and rebooting causes your system to "lock up" (screen goes blank when X starts), believe me when I tell you it's not locked up. In fact, X is actually running. The reason you don't "see" anything is cause your monitor resolutions are wrong...period. Here's the way it works. If X fails to load, it always bounces you to a command prompt. Anytime you boot and you see nothing after X starts loading (or GDM/KDM), your monitor refresh rates are wrong, I can't stress this enough. Many people interpret this as a crash or lock-up but it is not. If X fails to load, it will bounce you back to a command prompt and spit out an error log. And, I can assure you that Linux rarely "locks up", it's not like Windows, the kernel is always running once it boots and it is extremely difficult to bring down. Save yourself some frustration in the future, always back up your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 (xorg.conf) file before tinkering with it. That way, you can always Ctrl-Alt-F1 into a command session and log in as root to copy the backup file to its original file name if somthing goes wrong. In fact, I keep a copy of the file in my home folder just in case. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about when it comes to this issue.

You may of upgraded to a newer kernel with the upgrades. After doing this, there isn't a cooresponding driver for that kernel version so you need to re-do the video setup. Installing the kernel-source package for the new kernel, and for nvidia cards, running the nvidia-setup program can fix the problem. If you have to punt, you could change to the 'vesa' device instead.

Also, was your monitor in the sax list? If not, you could use the 'gtf' program to generate mode lines.

gtf <vertical> <horizontal> <refresh> -x

AMD Athelon 1700+
Dual boot Windoze XP Home
ASUS A7N266E (nForce 420D Chipset)
Nvidia GeForce MX 400 128M video
Viewsonic A75f monitor
Debian Sarge downloaded yesterday (kernel 2.6??)


Can you give me any specifics using the Debian (Sarge) Distro? I am a total Newbie
Does the horizontal scan freq. matter much?
The configuration tool gives you a choice of setting only the vertical refresh rate in what they call the medium setting which is what I did. According to my Monitor MFG (Viewsonic A75f) the optimal is 1152X870@77hz so I chose the refresh closest to that (Ithink it was 75Hz) so I am assuming this is not the problem but what happens if you don't tell it your horizontal scan frequency? I cannot find this spec anywhere. The newer 17 inch CRT models have a 30 - 70 Khz spec I wonder if I should try the advanced setting and set this horizontal scan freq.

Hope someone can help.

Oh! How can I get this to restart or shutdown once I get the blank screen? I have tried "ctrl" "alt" "back space",
"ctrl" "alt" "F1" and "ctrl" "alt" "del" and nothing seems to work. I have had to hard boot this several times and I fear I am tearing up my file system.

Can anyone refer me to other good resources for learning Linux?

Thanks

Vin