SlackwareThis Forum is for the discussion of Slackware Linux.
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
What video card are you using? Sounds like something typical for a Nvidia card without the proper drivers. What video card are you running, and have you installed the drivers for it yet?
If you have all the information about your mouse, monitor, and video card - you can try running xf86config from that command line as a normal user.
Last edited by Bruce Hill; 01-05-2004 at 12:23 AM.
You need to run xf86config in order to configure X. Don't worry about graphic memory size or about 'device indentifiers'. First backup /etc/X11/XF86Config. This is the file that xf86config will overwrite. A useful command: CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE. This will kill X if you have problems such as mouse not working. After running xf86config then type startx. If you have installed other windowmanagers you can choose which one to use by running(from console) xwmconfig, then startx
You can set it up so that Slack boots to a graphic login by editing the file /etc/inittab and changing the line
id:3:initdefault
to
id:4:initdefault
However this is not really a good idea since if your X configuration isn't right or you ever have problems in X, this setting will put your box in a loop where you can't shutdown or login. If you decide to try this anyway, be sure you have a rescue disk around, like tomsrtbt, so you can boot, mount your partition and change this. It's not as elegant to have to type startx each time but it's MUCH safer.
Also don't use the other X configuration utilities such as xfree86setup or xf86cfg as they will create an incomplete XF86Config file which will cause the problems I described above (CTSL+ALT+BACKSPACE doesn't work in these case!)
The only times I have ever 'lost' a Slackware install is from having to crash it because of improper X configuration. If you are using ext2 file system, it may recover once or twice, but usually not three times. Reiser file system is much better at recovering itself.
Start with conservative settings for horizontal and vertical sync in xf86config unless you know your monitors capabilities.
you added a new user and now that user cant use it or it doesnt work for anyone?
if just that user cant use X then its a permission problem ... if it isnt working for anyone then you got something messed up. Try with root or even better the user you were using before you added a new user.
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.