i spent alllll last nite trying to get X working and everytime it would crash, leaving my console unreadable (a bunch of black and green squares on the screen). now i have X up and running but im using the standard vesa driver instead of the nvidia one. checking the Xorg.0.log i find signal 11 everytime, but have been unable to determine what that means. im using an NVIDIA GeForce 4 MX 420 video card (64MB memory) with a Samsung Syncmaster 753DF (horizsync:30-70, vertrefresh:50-160). if ne other info is needed i would be glad to post it, because apparently vesa driver wont let me have 1280x1024 resolution :P

any help would be greatly appreciated. thank you

PS: i am using the most current version of the nvidia driver from their site
PSS: this is a fresh install as of last nite

If you re-ran any of the X configuration tools after installing the nvidia driver, they may have blown away the xorg.conf changes you made (from the nvidia readme doc). I'm using a geforce 6600GT with a Samsung SyncMaster 953DF - for what it's worth, here's my xorg.conf file:

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "X.org Configured"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Files"
RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
ModulePath "/usr/X11R6/lib/modules"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/CID/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "extmod"
Load "glx"
Load "dbe"
Load "record"
Load "xtrap"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"

DisplaySize 363 272 # mm
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "SAM"
ModelName "SyncMaster"
HorizSync 31.5 - 92.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 160.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "nVidia Corporation"
BoardName "Unknown Board"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 16
Modes "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1600x1200" "1400x1050" "1280x960" "1280x800" "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1152x768" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

i tried that xorg.conf (with a few modifications (monitor frequencies and reolutions)) and had the same results. im going to try again with an older version of the driver as i remember having this problem b4 and if i remember correctly that is how i got it to work.

UPDATE: DIDNT WORK :'(

ok im trying to post the Xorg.0.log contents but stupid forum says i cant post links to other websites till i make 5 posts?!? how frustrating

got it working using very old version of nvidia driver (about a year old, build 5336 or 6106, cant remember off the top of my head.