Hi guys,
Well I have been a CNE for 8 years now and finally decided to take the plunge and install Linux on a separate partition on one of my home Dell computers. I have Redhat 6.1 that came bundled with a Linux Admin book I bought. During install it failed to detect my video card. The install program then gave me the opportunity to define my monitor but not my video card. So though Linux runs when I try to do a "startx" I get
"execve failed for /etc/x11/x (errno 2)"
and "_x11TransSocketUNIXConnect: Can't connect: errno=111 giving up"
and "xinit: Connection refused (errno 111): unable to connect to x server" and finally "xinit: no such process (errno 3): Server error"

My video is the on-board video of a Dell Optiplex GX110. It is using an Intel 810E chipset. After much research and grief I decided to download the latest XFree86 4.0.1. sinced this appears to be what I need to support this video card. I have downlaoded a bunch of .tgz files into my /usr/X11R6/bin folder. First of all, is this the correct place for me to "unzip" these files? Then, after they are "unzipped" how do I install this version of XFree86? Also, to unzip these should I just do a "gunzip xdoc.tgz" for instance? Thanks for your help guys, if I can get past this video problem I can get into the GUI and start to actually do something with Linux. Right now my book is no help cuz it assumes I can get into x-windows. Arghhh!!

The Xfree install is a little different then the average Linux install. You just download the files into a temporary directory and run the install script as root. More information is available here -> http://www.xfree.org/4.0.1/Install.html.

Thanks Jeremy!
 

Jeremy,
well what can I say except DOHHH! I was at that site yesterday when I was downloading the new software, and I ran that script as follows: sh Xinstall.sh -check
to determine what version to download. So I was >almost< there! LOL!
Anyway, I just found out I downloaded them to the wrong folder so I need to mv them to /tmp before I gunzip them, right? I'm slowly but surely picking this stuff up, I'll get there. Thanks for the help.

Jeremy, it didn't work, what now?
 

Jeremy,
OK, I ran the Xinstall script and now I have XFree86 4.0.2 installed. Ran xf86config and told it what kind of monitor and video card I have (the Intel 810 chipset shows up this time as card 262) and told it to just use 8 bit depth for starters, but when I run startx I get "Fatal Server Error: AddScreen/ScreenInit failed for driver 0"
I don't know if I need to specify clock settings or what? I looked at my xf86config file and it looks OK from what I can tell. Any ideas on what I can try next? How do I tell it just to use a generic VGA driver? Better yet, how the heck do I copy the log file to my floppy drive (Drive A:) so I can send it to xfree86.org for their perusal? Thanks!

Go to your /etc/X11 directory and move XF86Config-4 to a temporary name then run "ln -s XF86Config XF86Config-4".

Three's a chance that XF86Config is using the XF86Config-4 file, whereas your xf86config program is creating an XF86Config file.

-- L. James

Larry, there is no file with that name
 

Larry,
I went to my /etc/X11 directory and did an ls
There is no file named XF86Config-4 there, only XF86Config

Another dumb question. How can you do an LS and tell what is a file and what is a directory? Is there an equivalent switch in Linux like there is with the DOS dir /od command? And how the heck do I copy a linux file to my floppy drive??? That way I can let someone look at my XF86Config file and tell me if it looks right. Right now there is no way for anyone to TELNET into my box because I go through my Win2K box using ICS to get to the internet, so my IP address is 192.168.0.2
I can FTP it to someone else but that's about it. Any suggestions? Thanks for the help!!

Most of the commands I do are from a terminal command prompt. I don’t use X much except for running multi xterminal sessions. I’ve recently been looking at X a little more than normal and see that some of the Window Managers have point and click mounting, formatting and copying options.
To do copy file from the text base level type cp <filename> <filepathname>. You can copy your XF86Config file to a floppy as:

copy /etc/X11/XF86Config /mnt/floppy/XF86Config

To copy to the floppy, of course it has to be mounted. You can mount it with:

Mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy

There are numerous ways of identifying the type of file you’re looking at (as per your directory verses regular file question). Try, “ls –FC”. The directories will have a “/” after the name. The executables will have an “*” after the names. The link directories will have a “@” after the names. You can do a “man ls” to get a large number of options. The few options in DOS’ dir could never compare.

By the way, I removed the XF86Config-4 file from my X11 directory and found that X will drop back to using the XF86Config if it doesn’t see it. So it’s using the file you’re trying to fix.

I’ll let you know if I get any other suggestions on that matter.

-- L. James

Check this out
 

Larry,
Just went to my Linux screen and the screen was blank, tried to "wake it up" by moving my mouse and moving the mouse was entering commands. It was giving me "bash" commands and error messages!! Why is moving my mouse at the text prompt (logged in as ROOT) entering commands? Maybe I have the wrong mouse driver installed? I have a microsoft Intellimouse plugged into my PS/2 port. Do I select Microsoft Mouse? PS/2 Mouse? Intellimouse? It is all 3. Maybe some of my problems start there. Anyway, thanks a million for your help again. Also, the mouse is connected through a Cybex Duette Commander (2 port electric switchbox for sharing 1 keyboard, mouse and monitor between two computers) so maybe this could be causing part of my problems? Thanks!