Hi.

I installed a barebones Woody system, upgraded to Sarge, and then started installing packages.

I now have XFree86 and KDE installed, along with the nVidia drivers for my vid card.
Problem is this:

At bootup, it progresses fine to:
Starting X Display Manager... (or some such - tries to start X)

Then my screen flickers three times, and I'm taken back to a shell login. No error given. I can switch to VT7, but there's just a cursor in top left.
So X failed without explaining why.

If I startx, it craps out with "no screens found"

But, if I modprobe nvidia, and then startx, everything's peachy - no problems at all.

Weird thing is, in the boot message, I get the "license NVIDIA taints kernel" message - so apparently, it IS loading the driver before it tries its initial xdm call.

I've also done a depmod, to ensure the kernel realizes nvidia exists, and make some attempt to resolve its dependencies... not sure if it would help, but couldn't hurt.

How do I get X loading properly at boot?

Any ideas would be appreciated!

--Rounan

well, recheck your XF86Config file, make sure that you "monitors" section is setup correctly, you have "nvidia" set as driver, deleted all instances of Dri and GLcore and made sure glx is uncommented

nvidia drivers tend to avoid leaving error messages when starting the desktop manager

XF86Config-4:

Section "Module"
Load "bitmap"
Load "dbe"
Load "ddc"
Load "extmod"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
Load "int10"
Load "record"
Load "speedo"
Load "type1"
Load "vbe"
EndSection

(...)

Section "Device"
Identifier "nVidia GeForce Ti4200"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "NoLogo" "true"
Option "DigitalVibrance" "2"
Option "CursorShadow" "true"

EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Generic Monitor"
HorizSync 30-107
VertRefresh 50-85
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "nVidia GeForce Ti4200"
Monitor "Generic Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
(...)
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

It all looks good to my eyes, and the same config works on a subsequent "startx" - just not at boot.