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07-20-2005, 12:45 AM
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#1
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Member
Registered: Dec 2004
Posts: 51
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xfree 86
Ok everyone I have another newbie question. As of now i I have slackware 10.1 on my laptop which works fine but I have no graphics at all. I've been messing around with X and still cannot get it configured right. Now I'm thinking if I installed xfree 86 would this help at all or would I just be messing up things even more. The other thing is that isn't xfree 86 and X basically the same thing because from what I read it sounds the same. Thank You
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07-20-2005, 01:27 AM
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#2
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Member
Registered: Mar 2005
Location: Chicago
Distribution: Gentoo AMD64
Posts: 365
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It wouldn't help, what kind of errors are you getting?
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07-20-2005, 08:45 AM
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#3
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Senior Member
Registered: Sep 2003
Location: The Netherlands
Distribution: Gentoo (main); SuSE 9.3 (fallback)
Posts: 1,607
Rep:
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History lesson
Just to explain (because knowing what you're trying to ask or do helps you ask it better or get it done):
Linux, in it's "natural" state, does not have a GUI. The kernel (which is what Linux is), is of course a console (terminal) app, so are most of the programs available for Linux. It is quite possible to perform 98% of all tasks that you can do on your computer without a GUI.... from playing films, to burning cds, to surfing the web, to configuring your firewall, to writing and editing text documents, to listening to or editing music, to re-encoding/ripping DVDs, to repartitioning, to playing games. All these things and more can be done from the console (sometimes with the assistance of the framebuffer).
This is why having your GUI break is an inconvenience (sometimes a serious one), but not a crisis. Because you can still do pretty much everything you might need to without it. A GUI is completely optional, unless you have a useage need that literally demands it (like running Windows games or apps, which require a GUI).
But a lot of people are used to a GUI, and a lot of them like a GUI, so Linux distributions now offer GUIs. To display a GUI (and GUI programs), one needs an X server (commonly called X) to manage the Graphical User Interface display components (titlebars, scrollbars, mouse cursors, multiple window management, advanced graphics, etc.). This server, like most servers (daemons) under Linux is not required (plenty of people run X-less systems), and like most Linux servers, you have a choice about what program you choose to perform the X server functions (although much less choice than with most other things Linux).
For a very long time, the only X server was XFree86. Then, a year or two ago, a couple of things happened: 1) people (developers, users, distribution teams) got pretty sick and tired of the speed and direction of development (or lack thereof) of XF86, and 2) XFree86 changed their license, which would have forced those distributions using it (i.e., all of them) to do additional work to comply with the license (which many felt was unjust in the first place), for a product that they felt was not up to par anyway.
So, a group of developers took the last GPL source code of XFree86 and forked it. That means that they took it (perfectly legal, as it was GPL, and that's what GPL is all about) and began development in a radically new direction from the team that had written the original code. This was the birth of the current X server, X.org. After a fairly short transition period, all distributions now offer X.org instead of XFree86 as their X server application, although XFree86 is not "dead" (it still exists), and many distribution repositories may still carry the last GPL version of XFree86 from before the fork buried somewhere for those who really, really need it for compatibility reasons.
Thus, in a sense, roc you're right-- XFree86 and X are "the same thing", because XFree86 provides X, as does X.org (which is what you're probably using, that's currently broken). The thing is, juanbobo is also right-- switching from X.org to XFree86 wouldn't help you, for more reasons than one.
So yes, what errors are you getting, what are the specs of your laptop (at least the make and model number), and what does your /etc/X11/xorg.conf say-- not to mention your logs (dmesg and/or /var/log/Xorg.0.log)?
Also, what runlevel are you booting to? Is X actually supposed to be starting? Or are these errors occurring when you run startx?
Last edited by motub; 07-20-2005 at 08:47 AM.
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07-20-2005, 05:12 PM
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#4
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Member
Registered: Dec 2004
Posts: 51
Original Poster
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Thanks for the awesome reply Motub, I'm a bit busy right now but I will post up my error logs a little later. My system is a Toshiba Satellite Laptop 1805-S254 and it's a little old now by today standards. It has a Intel P3 1.0 GHZ and 256 MB or ram plus around 10 GB of hard drive and it uses the trident cyberblade video board. Hope this helps a little more. Thank You
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07-20-2005, 05:37 PM
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#5
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Senior Member
Registered: Sep 2003
Location: The Netherlands
Distribution: Gentoo (main); SuSE 9.3 (fallback)
Posts: 1,607
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I've gotta say, I wasn't so much expecting the laptop specs to help all that much without the logs or the config file, but I put "trident cyberblade" into Google, and guess what I got:
Trident CyberBlade Aladdin i1 - ThinkWiki
Quote:
Trident CyberBlade Aladdin i1
From ThinkWiki
Trident CyberBlade Aladdin i1
This is a Trident video adapter
Features
* Chipset: Trident Blade
* PCI ID: 1023:8620
* Interface AGP 2X
* Uses Main memory (8MB)
Linux X.Org driver
This chip is supported by the 'trident' driver as part of the X.Org distribution
ThinkPad LCD
Display on the internal LCD works as long as you set the monitor settings correct.
External VGA port
??
Linux kernel Framebuffer driver
??
ThinkPad's this chip may be found in
* i Series 1200, i Series 1300
* R30
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So! We know it has drivers, and that it can work, with X.org. That's one hurdle down. Now we just need to know how to configure it... maybe http://www.linux-laptop.net/ can help with that.
Your lappy is listed, at http://forums.storagereview.net/inde...howtopic=15675 , detailing the experiences of someone installing FC2 on the same model. Perhaps something there will be of help, despite being about a different distribution.
Oh wait, here's a better link... Wigglit's Notes on Linux and the Toshiba 1805-S274-- Wigglit even has a link to a copy of his XF86 config file!!! (which is the same format as the xorg.conf file; you can just copy it and rename it to xorg.conf, as many of us have done in the past-- just back up the first one "just in case").
OK, so check those out and see how far you get with it. There could be pre-existing problems (like the trident driver not being compiled in the kernel, or compiled as a module but not loaded, which are easy to fix once known to be the issue), but on the other hand, it might just all work once you have a correctly configured file.
So keep us posted. 
Last edited by motub; 07-20-2005 at 05:38 PM.
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07-22-2005, 03:33 PM
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#6
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Member
Registered: Dec 2004
Posts: 51
Original Poster
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Thanks alot man, I will give it a go when I get a chance. Thanks again.
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07-23-2005, 08:48 PM
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#7
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LQ Newbie
Registered: Jul 2005
Posts: 4
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Hey Guys,
Nice to find an active thread on this.
I have Slack 10.1 on a Toshiba A20-s2607 which uses the xorg Trident CyberBlade driver. However, I am having a lot of issues running xv (or anything other than OpenGL or xshm) for that matter in any player I can find (Xine, Mplayer, etc.). This wouldn't be a problem were it not for the fact that these run like molassis up hill.
I've found a lot of posts on this from over the last year or so (on bugzilla especially), it seems to have eventually been attributed to something wrong with xorg (I am not 100% sure so don't quote me on this). I have yet to find a resolution. There were some suggestions about turning down the colour depth or the resolution, but neither of those seemed to work.
In the end I guess I am wondering if anyone has heard of any movement on this front (or of a possible resolution... you would be my new favorite person.....)?
If you need me to post a log, shoot. However, please be specific as to what it is you would like me to post (ie with command and everything), I have been using Windows since 3.11 (a driver is still an ini file to me...), and only got into linux with slack 9.1 (and very lightly).
Thanks,
Last edited by couchcommander; 07-23-2005 at 08:50 PM.
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07-24-2005, 01:01 AM
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#8
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Senior Member
Registered: Jun 2004
Posts: 2,553
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Re: History lesson
Quote:
Originally posted by motub
Linux distributions now offer GUIs.
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Linux distributions always came with xfree from the very beginning
without XFree forking from Xorg there would have been no Linux distributions i bet
because there would have been no x server.
Quote:
Originally posted by motub
So, a group of developers took the last GPL source code of XFree86 and forked it. That means that they took it (perfectly legal, as it was GPL, and that's what GPL is all about) and began development in a radically new direction from the team that had written the original code. This was the birth of the current X server, X.org.
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first XFree86 was not GPL it used MIT license
second:
Xorg is not a fork of XFree. Xorg is the MIT X consortium the original maintainers of X code.
XFree was a fork of Xorg from when they went proptiatary once hence XFree. Xorg has been folding into itself changes to XFree for years because Xorg was itself quite dead. XFree even had a seat on the Xorg board. With the change to XFree license Xorg no longer folds in XFree changes at least not yet ! anyway so the two appearently diverge. Xorg folded itself into XFree 4.4RC2 just like it always had at freedesktop.org and goes from there with it's same version numbers as before. they put XFree 4.4RC2 in the stable branch and Xorg in the unstable branch and folded the two together. That's not a fork. it's just a switch to xorg.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/solarisx86/message/8495
one can find lines like this in XFree changelogs from 2003
"Update the X.Org release number from 6.5.1 to 6.6 in various documents and header files"
so XFree developers were actively participating in Xorgs use of XFree.
there is something more than meets the eye about the Xorg XFree story
you must remember that in America Corporate PR is now exactly the same as straight up propaganda misinformation.
Whenever you find all people saying one word for word thing all in unison for instance about a license issue and a fork. You can be assured that it is not the truth.
just though i'd toss that out there again
Last edited by foo_bar_foo; 07-24-2005 at 01:10 AM.
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08-02-2005, 10:16 AM
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#9
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Member
Registered: Apr 2002
Location: Bronx, NY
Distribution: Ubuntu
Posts: 371
Rep:
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Hi - I have a Toshiba 1800 model ( Cyberblade Alladin model) that works fine with FC2, but will not run with FC4. I'm guessing this is the same (or similar) issue as others are having.
The computer white-screens when attempting to load X. Ctrl-Alt-F1 brings me to a (sometimes striped white, sometimes readable) console again where I can INIT3 (but still not get rid of the screen corruption) or reboot.
That said, I'm not sure there is a "fix" for this that doesn't require using older stuff, or hacking/recompiling.
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08-02-2005, 09:38 PM
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#10
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Member
Registered: Dec 2004
Posts: 51
Original Poster
Rep:
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Hey GAVollink could you elaborate a little more if you did anything you did not mention in the post to get it to work. Thanks a lot
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08-03-2005, 11:20 PM
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#11
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Member
Registered: Apr 2002
Location: Bronx, NY
Distribution: Ubuntu
Posts: 371
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I could, but there's nowhere to elaborate. I haven't done anything else, and I haven't gotten it to work.
However, I'm also not actively putting time into it.
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08-06-2005, 06:02 AM
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#12
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LQ Newbie
Registered: Aug 2005
Posts: 4
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I'm seeing the same as GAVollink. I have a KDS Valiant 6410, with a trident cyberblade. Worked great on RH8 and RH9 and FC1, but on FC4, whenever it enters graphical mode I get a pure white screen.
I'll try fussing with the config file tomorrow. It's 3AM now though, so time to give up for the night.
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08-06-2005, 01:56 PM
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#13
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LQ Newbie
Registered: Aug 2005
Posts: 4
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Good news! My problem was solved by switching from the "trident" driver to "vesa". GAVollink, you may want to try the same.
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08-06-2005, 02:18 PM
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#14
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Member
Registered: Dec 2004
Location: Malta
Distribution: Debian Sid
Posts: 865
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The vesa driver is a generic driver and almost always seems to work with any card. However you will not get any of the more advanced, card specific features and speed. (You might not need them either!)
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08-06-2005, 02:23 PM
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#15
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Member
Registered: Oct 2004
Location: Arkansas
Distribution: Crux, PCLinuxOS
Posts: 31
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Yes, the "vesa" driver is what you need. This seems to be an ongoing problem with the trident cyberblade (especially in laptops).
I run Vector 5.1STD on a very outdated Compaq Presario 1247. 400Mhz AMD K6-2 processor, 3 Gig harddrive, 94MB ram.
I run xorg-6.8.2 and spent several days researching the problem. The only solution I ever found was changing the driver to "vesa". Now X runs great on this old dinosaur.
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