So I have been bangig my head against the wall and need some insight.

This is the situation. I have a debian linux installed on a hardware without a video card. My goal is to to connect to the hardware via ethernet from a remote terminal. I am logged into the linux system via SSH with Xll forwarding enabled.

I have checked the video device and it is a NVDIA GEForce FX 5200.
PCI setting are bus 1, device 0, function 0. Currently I only have one monitor and the following is the xorg.conf file for the Device section:


Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Generic Video Card"
Driver "nv"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Generic Monitor"
Option "DPMS"
HorizSync 28-51
VertRefresh 43-60
EndSection


This is what the log file show me after I attempt to start startx:

GeForce FX 5200, GeForce FX 5200 Ultra, GeForce FX 5200,
GeForce FX 5200LE, GeForce FX Go5200, GeForce FX Go5250,
GeForce FX 5500, GeForce FX 5100, GeForce FX Go5200 32M/64M,
Quadro NVS 55/280 PCI, Quadro FX 500/600 PCI,
GeForce FX Go53xx Series, GeForce FX Go5100, GeForce FX 5900 Ultra,
GeForce FX 5900, GeForce FX 5900XT, GeForce FX 5950 Ultra,
GeForce FX 5900ZT, Quadro FX 3000, Quadro FX 700,
GeForce FX 5700 Ultra, GeForce FX 5700, GeForce FX 5700LE,
GeForce FX 5700VE, GeForce FX Go5700, GeForce FX Go5700,
Quadro FX Go1000, Quadro FX 1100, GeForce 6800 Ultra, GeForce 6800,
GeForce 6800 LE, GeForce 6800 XE, GeForce 6800 XT, GeForce 6800 GT,
GeForce 6800 GT, GeForce 6800 GS, GeForce 6800 XT, Quadro FX 4000,
GeForce 6800 GS, GeForce 6800, GeForce 6800 LE, GeForce 6800 XT,
GeForce Go 6800, GeForce Go 6800 Ultra, Quadro FX Go1400,
Quadro FX 3450/4000 SDI, Quadro FX 1400, GeForce 6600 GT,
GeForce 6600, GeForce 6600 LE, GeForce 6600 VE, GeForce Go 6600,
GeForce 6610 XL, GeForce Go 6600 TE/6200 TE, GeForce 6700 XL,
GeForce Go 6600, GeForce Go 6600 GT, Quadro FX 550, Quadro FX 550,
Quadro FX 540, GeForce 6200, GeForce 6500,
GeForce 6200 TurboCache(TM), GeForce 6200SE TurboCache(TM),
GeForce 6200 LE, GeForce Go 6200, Quadro NVS 285, GeForce Go 6400,
GeForce Go 6200, GeForce Go 6400, GeForce 6250, GeForce 6800,
GeForce 6800 LE, GeForce 6800 GT, GeForce 6800 XT, GeForce 6200,
GeForce 6200 A-LE, GeForce 7800 GTX, GeForce 7800 GTX,
GeForce 7800 GT, GeForce 7800 GS, GeForce 7800 SLI, GeForce Go 7800,
GeForce Go 7800 GTX, Quadro FX 4500, GeForce 7300 LE,
GeForce 7300 SE, GeForce Go 7200, GeForce Go 7300, GeForce Go 7400,
GeForce Go 7400 GS, Quadro NVS 110M, Quadro NVS 120M, Quadro FX 350M,
GeForce 7500 LE, Quadro FX 350, GeForce 7300 GS, GeForce 7600 GT,
GeForce 7600 GS, GeForce 7300 GT, GeForce 7600 LE, GeForce 7300 GT,
GeForce Go 7700, GeForce Go 7600, GeForce Go 7600 GT,
Quadro NVS 300M, GeForce Go 7900 SE, Quadro FX 550M, Quadro FX 560,
GeForce 7900 GTX, GeForce 7900 GT, GeForce 7900 GS,
GeForce Go 7900 GS, GeForce Go 7900 GTX, Quadro FX 2500M,
Quadro FX 1500M, Quadro FX 5500, Quadro FX 3500, Quadro FX 1500,
Quadro FX 4500 X2, GeForce 6150, GeForce 6150 LE, GeForce 6100,
GeForce Go 6150, GeForce Go 6100, GeForce 8800 GTX, GeForce 8800 GTS,
GeForce 8800 Ultra, Quadro FX 5600, Quadro FX 4600, GeForce 8600 GTS,
GeForce 8600 GT, GeForce 8400 GS, GeForce 8600M GT, GeForce 8700M GT,
Quadro FX 370, Quadro NVS 320M, Quadro FX 570M, Quadro FX 1600M,
Quadro FX 570, Quadro FX 1700, GeForce 8500 GT, GeForce 8400 GS,
GeForce 8300 GS, GeForce 8600M GS, GeForce 8400M GT,
GeForce 8400M GS, GeForce 8400M G, Quadro NVS 140M, Quadro NVS 130M,
Quadro NVS 135M, Quadro FX 360M, Quadro NVS 290, GeForce 8800 GT,
Quadro FX 3700
(EE) No devices detected.

Fatal server error:
no screens found


As seen in read the device is there but I am not understanding why startx is not recognizing this.
Below is the output from startx:


(==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Thu Nov 5 16:58:09 2009
(==) Using config file: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf"
(EE) No devices detected.

Fatal server error:
no screens found
XIO: fatal IO error 104 (Connection reset by peer) on X server ":0.0"
after 0 requests (0 known processed) with 0 events remaining.
Couldnt get a file descriptor referring to the console




Any insight would be greatly appreciated!!!!

I don't think you can just run "startx" using X over ssh. You can only start individual programs, which actually get run on the local X server.

If you want a complete desktop remotely, I believe you need to setup XDMCP, vnc, or freeNX.

Not sure if I completely understand.

My local machine is running windows, thus I have installed Xming and have started a server. As well I have Putty installed and have logged in with X11 option. The DISPLAY on the linux box is set to the local machine with the video card.

What I am trying to do is run "startx" as instructed by some documentation that has been presented to me. If this is incorrect, as you may be indicating this may explain alot, but I don't understand why one could not start startx on its own with the current setup.

Dazed and Confused !!

Do you have a link to the documentation?

Okay, I did a quick google and found this thread. Maybe startx is the wrong command for the desktop/window manager you're trying to start.

I've run this using gnome-session. I believe that x-session will work as well.

OK update......if anybody is out there that can help still!!

Using Xming as the X server on my local desk top I have been
able the SSH into the linux evironment ( w/ X11 enabled).

Have the ability to run the following:

xclock -> displayed on local dt
xeye -> displayed on local dt

startx -> FAILS with the following:

(EE) VESA(0): Cannot read V_BIOS
(EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.

Fatal server error:
no screens found
XIO: fatal IO error 104 (Connection reset by peer) on X server ":0.0"
after 0 requests (0 known processed) with 0 events remaining.

Have been trying to figure this out for days and cannot figure this out.

HELP!!!

There is a fundamental difference between startx and those other X applications. xclock and xeye are X clients. They use an existing X server (as described by $DISPLAY) to render their output and get keyboard and pointer input. On the other hand, startx is intended to start an X server. Since an X server requires some video hardware in order to run, it bails, just like you see.
I will hazard a guess that what you really want to do is run a desktop, which is normally the second major component of startx. It is completely possible to do this with your Xming server. You will need to find out what desktop you want to run, and poke around in startx (it is a shell script) to find what is done to invoke the desktop application.

Perhaps someone else can provide some details on that.

--- rod.

run 'gnome-session' rather than 'xclock' or 'xeye'. This will open a window with the remote gnome desk top on it. I believe that x-session (or is it X-session?) is the generic form of this command, I'm sure that there's a KDE version as well.

I think you need to export the display to your local machine. When you ssh into the linux box run this "export DISPLAY=ipaddressoflocalmachine:0.0"

So if I were to log into a linux server 192.168.1.1 with ssh from 192.168.1.2 i would run "export DISPLAY=192.168.1.2:0.0" from the ssh session. That tells the x server to use the display at 192.168.1.1. Then try to startx... but the local xserver on 192.168.1.2 has to be running.

If you have xdmcp setup you can then run:
Xephyr :0 -host-cursor -query 192.168.1.1 -screen 1440x900

and you should get a remote graphical login to the server provided you have that setup in gdm,kdm,xdm, etc...