All I wanted to have was an elemental Linux installation with a modest X Window manager and which allowed me to run JDK/JRE and Eclipse to perform and develop Java programs. The ZipSlack installation seemed appropriate to me.

I have a an AMD machine with an ATI Radeon card. Installation of the ZipSlack went well. Then I added X Window and some simple window managers. I configured xorg.conf to the best of my knowledge and as recommended. I run xwmconfig and get the choices. After this I once could run the fvwm (or what the name is) with a satisfactory high resolution. After this I tried "xfcv" and "window" (or what the name is). Both let me see only a black screen with a cursor in it. The cursor is movable but nothing else is displayed. I don't even get out of this state and have to switch off the computer for a reboot (probably a newbie stupidity, hope somebody can help me out of this!). After this not even the the formerly working fvwm would run, the X Window system seems spoilt.

From what I read in this forum, the latest Slackware seem to have a BUG! I wonder what can make this distribution behave in such a weird way and if anybody has a solution to this, please let us know!

I don't have any experience on ZipSlack but this sounds like you have an X config problem. Mabye you could post your xorg.conf file?

Often the default xorg.conf works out of the box and tweaking is only nessesairy if you want 3D hardware accelleration etc. See if you have the old file left (mabye renamed to xorg.conf.old?).

Btw, regarding your other post on the keymap issue you change "us" to "de" in the correct section in xorg.conf to havce a german keymap in X.

You should be able to kill X with "CTR-ALT-Backspace" so no reboot is required.

Follows the xorg.config as it was last used. I have deleted most commented lines.
Going back to former version doesn't help. The log file in /var/log/Xorg.0. ... looks fine to me and indicates the radeon driver working.

The irritating fact is that quite a lot people seem to suffer the same problem, and on top I was trying ZipSlack on a different (older) machine with ATI Rage 128 graphics but to the same effect. So I surmise a somewhat "systematic" failure here.

Perhaps I should try out this other ATI driver out of Starnberg!


# File generated by xorgconfig.

# **********************************************************************
# Module section -- this section is used to specify
# which dynamically loadable modules to load.
# **********************************************************************
#
Section "Module"

Load "dbe" # Double buffer extension
SubSection "extmod"
Option "omit xfree86-dga" # don't initialise the DGA extension
EndSubSection

# This loads the font modules
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"

Load "glx"

EndSection

# **********************************************************************
# Files section. This allows default font and rgb paths to be set
# **********************************************************************

Section "Files"

RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"

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/75dpi/"

EndSection

# **********************************************************************
# Server flags section.
# **********************************************************************

Section "ServerFlags"
EndSection

# **********************************************************************
# Input devices
# **********************************************************************

# **********************************************************************
# Core keyboard's InputDevice section
# **********************************************************************

Section "InputDevice"

Identifier "Keyboard1"
Driver "kbd"
Option "AutoRepeat" "500 30"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc104"
Option "XkbLayout" "de"
Option "XkbVariant" "DE"

EndSection


# **********************************************************************
# Core Pointer's InputDevice section
# **********************************************************************

Section "InputDevice"

# Identifier and driver

Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "Auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"

EndSection


# **********************************************************************
# Monitor section
# **********************************************************************

# Any number of monitor sections may be present

Section "Monitor"

Identifier "NEC MultiSync XE17"
HorizSync 31.0 - 65.0
VertRefresh 55-120

EndSection


# **********************************************************************
# Graphics device section
# **********************************************************************

Section "Device"
Identifier "Standard VGA"
VendorName "Unknown"
BoardName "Unknown"
Driver "vga"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "ATI Radeon 9200SE"
Driver "radeon"
# VideoRam 32000
# Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate
EndSection


# **********************************************************************
# Screen sections
# **********************************************************************

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen 1"
Device "ATI Radeon 9200SE"
Monitor "NEC MultiSync XE17"
DefaultDepth 24

Subsection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
EndSection

# **********************************************************************
# ServerLayout sections.
# **********************************************************************

Section "ServerLayout"

Screen "Screen 1"

InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"

EndSection

I'd try with the "ati" driver first.

I'm running slack 10.1 on an ATI Radeon 9600XT without problems. I'll post my xorg.conf as soon as I reboot my computer (working in Windows now...).

I rebooted and tried a few different drivers and all seem to work (vesa, ati, radeon and fglrx).

Try "ati" and remove your standard vga entry.

Here's the xorg.conf file I use on my Radeon 9600XT: Mabye it'll be of some help.


#************************************************************
Section "Module"
Load "bitmap"
Load "dbe" # Double buffer extension
Load "ddc"
Load "GLcore"
Load "glx"
Load "dri"
SubSection "extmod"
Option "omit xfree86-dga" # don't initialise the DGA extension
EndSubSection
Load "freetype"
Load "int10"
Load "record"
Load "type1"
Load "vbe"
EndSection

Section "Files"
RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
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/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic/"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard1"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "se"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Samsung"
VendorName "SAM"
ModelName "SyncMaster"
HorizSync 30.0 - 81.0
VertRefresh 56.0 - 75.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Radeon 9600"
Driver "radeon"
# Option "VideoOverlay" "on"
# Option "OpenGLOverlay" "off"
# Option "UseInternalAGPGART" "yes" #"no"
VendorName "ATI Technologies Inc"
BoardName "RV350 AR [Radeon 9600]"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen 1"
Device "Radeon 9600"
Monitor "Samsung"
DefaultDepth 16
Subsection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 32
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubsection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Simple Layout"
Screen "Screen 1"
InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection
#*******************************************************