Hi All,

I just downloaded the newest XFree86 for Slackware, and after installing it I thought everything worked fine. I use TightVNC to control the Slackware Machine remotely, but when I got back home, I typed in 'startx' and it's giving me some error pertaining to 'cannot open freambuffer device'. I figured that I just had to run 'XFfree86 -autoconfig' and viola, as I've done this with another distro a while ago. However, in Slackware it wasn't quite as easy. The autoconfigure drops a file in my home directory that contains both my monitor and my videocard, yet it's still giving me errors.

Does anybody have any tips or pointers that I should be doing?

I even removed the entire X11R6 & etc/X11, then I reinstalled the entire Xwindows base install with installpkg. It's still not working. One thing I notice is that an error near the top says 'Cannot load config file'. I'm wondering if there's a step that the setup program does, which I'm missing.

Thanks in advance,

Cra

Firstly, could you answer why do you need XFree in Slackware (what doesn't work with default Xorg)?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something here. I thought I clicked on a link for slackware 'updating the Xserver' and it led me to Xfree86.org. So you're saying that I should be using Xorg. Perhaps this is the problem in the first place, that I was installing the wrong Xserver altogether!

Where did you find that link? It is in no Slackware site. That Pat dropped XFree for 10.0 should say something.....

Now for my 'automagic updating' spiel: Don't do it. Before you upgrade ANYTHING, research it. Read the changelogs. See what else has to be changed. Then update it yourself.

There is nothing wrong with using XFree, tho. It just is not on the current list of what is already installed w/Slackware.

And why did you feel you had to update? Were there problems?

And finally: This ought to teach you not to 'click on a link'. You probably had simliar issues for doing the same thing in other OS's. Don't do that.

Actually I've never had a problem like this before. I just got really confused about what Xserver I needed, I haven't used Slackware for a long time, so it might've been the reason why I thought XFree86 was still beig used. All I know is that I need to get some working Xserver on this machine. I'd prefer not to reinstall everything, but if I have to it's not that bad. I keep all my data & compiled/source backups on other disk drives.

You could uninstall all the XFree stuff, and then as root:

slackpkg update
slackpkg install x11

That should put in the latest slack version of X

*You will need to uncomment one of the servers in /etc/slackpkg/mirrors first if you havent used it before

*** You might want to check in /etc/X11/ and see if there's an XF86Config file or an xorg.conf file. That might help you determine if you actually installed something.


But, not knowing if you even installed XF86, I would recommend the following:

boot to runlevel 3 (like you have a choice )

log in as root

run pkgtool - "remove" packages option

Remove anything beginning with X11
Remove anything with XF86 in the name

exit pkgtool

Mount your cdrom with the /slackware/x directory on it
CD to that directory

run the following command:

installpkg --verbose *.tgz

(or run pkgtool again and choose "install packages from current directory")

Check your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file to be certain it matches your specs.

Run startx from the command line
Check for errors



HTH

Thanks guys,

It's all fixed. As soon as I put Xorg back in the picture, everything started working fine again. However, I also backed up my home directory and cleared all the hidden system files in there. I also deleted /etc/X11. Then I basically installed the package from the CD fresh.

I have a Nvidia Geforce 4 on this machine, and I was trying to see if a newer Xserver would give me higher resolutions. I can currently only go up to 1024x768, and my LCD TFT supports higher than that.