Re: How to recover X display? v.1.1
On 3/24/09, Lisa Kachold lisakach...@obnosis.com wrote: Well, with PCLinuxOs, I believe that x had the video drivers packaged differently between versions, so it might not be so simple. Well, I guess I'll just try to reinstall PCLinuxOS 2007 and try to do it without overwriting my home directory. --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: How to recover X display? v.1.1
PCL 2009 doesn't work (live locks up on 3 different computers). So, I'll just have to reinstall 2007. On 3/25/09, Lisa Kachold lisakach...@obnosis.com wrote: Just upgrade to 2009 it should retain your settings. --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: How to recover X display? v.1.1
From: Josef Lowder j...@actionline.com PCL 2009 doesn't work (live locks up on 3 different computers). So, I'll just have to reinstall 2007. You know what all this is saying to me? PCLinuxOS is buggy. Don't use it. Having a virtualbox install hose X, having LiveCDs lock up on multiple machines, and so forth are things that I just would not put up with. Life's too short, you know? If you are worried about your /home , the thing to do is to take that USB drive, plug it in, mount it, then tar czf /mnt/usb/ backup.tar.gz /home , so even if your reinstall eats your /home, you have a backup of everything on that USB drive and can get it retrieved with minimal fuss. Just make sure there's enough space on the USB drive and it should work fine. -- Matt G / Dances With Crows The Crow202 Blog: http://crow202.org/wordpress/ There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: How to recover X display? v.1.1
On 3/25/09, Matt Graham danceswithcr...@usa.net wrote: You know what all this is saying to me? PCLinuxOS is buggy. Don't use it. Having a virtualbox install hose X, having LiveCDs lock up on multiple machines, and so forth are things that I just would not put up with. Life's too short, you know? If you are worried about your /home , the thing to do is to take that USB drive, plug it in, mount it, then tar czf /mnt/usb/ backup.tar.gz /home , so even if your reinstall eats your /home, you have a backup of everything on that USB drive and can get it retrieved with minimal fuss. Just make sure there's enough space on the USB drive and it should work fine. You give very good, helpful, and efficient advice, Matt ... and I have sincerely appreciated every answer you've given. I must say, though, that PCLinuxOS is by far the best distro flavor (to my taste) that I have ever experienced. The 2007 release has been rock solid for me for two years on six different computers (until this virtualbox fiasco). I've tried many dozens of other distros and none of them have ever been anywhere near as easy and pleasing to use as PCL. I've tried a half dozen different releases of Ubuntu and Kubuntu and they have all been (in my experience) definitely inferior to PCL -- just very awkward and inefficient (to me). I realize some of my preference is probably just due to familiarity -vs- non-familiarity. But, to me, PCL is just head and shoulders above anything else I've tried. BTW: I couldn't get an Internet connection to work with the latest Kubuntu 8.1 on my thinkpad, whereas everything, even wireless, works out of the box on my thinkpad with PCL 2007. --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: How to recover X display? v.1.1
Lisa, thank you profusely for all of your far beyond the extra mile efforts to help me solve this matter. I will get back to work on this asap and follow all of your suggestions. It may take me a while to get back to this because this laptop is not a mission-critical unit and I have to get caught up on my regular work on my old reliable computer before I resume work on trying to get the laptop going again. Again, I sincerely appreciate all of your help! Many, many thanks. Joe On 3/24/09, Lisa Kachold lisakach...@obnosis.com wrote: Corrections in red: Not exactly I apologise, I was reading for context, and make sense from within a wealth of 22 years of Nix experience. The link is describing difficulty with v41/ABI drivers within Virtualbox booting into X via PCLinuxOS. When you build a virtualbox client, the xdrivers modules are created also; sometimes when one installs Virtualbox (and/or Xen), they decide to run their first system in a virtual under the OS, which is then described as primary in the grub configuration via the new kernel that was built during install (which might cause an X and kernel module mismatch). For instance under Redhat/XEN this is usually what is called a PAE kernel. You, after installing Virtualbox, verified that you are still running the same kernel from grub.conf? You can also look at the file creation date for the kernel that is indicated to boot first into the grub configuration. Post installation of Virtualbox, your Xorg logs say what? If I remember correctly Xorg was whining we needed a couple of video modules? Irregardless of whether you are now running in a VirtualBox or not: a) boot fails to go to X b) you can't startx Solutions: 1) You can try to boot into your system and reconfigure your X drivers via command line? First try this: # sudo Xconfigurator You can try to configure your monitor and video card for X via this utility. Might work, it's worth a try...[but not highly probable]. 2) Update/upgrade your system, although this might have been what caused it. There are some major differences between the way that X uses kernel drivers for video cards in recent versions. http://distrowatch.com/index.php?distribution=allmonth=allyear=2009 sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade 3) Kernel modules and X drivers Your Xorg errors talked about two drivers: module ABI major version (1) doesn't match server's version (2) failed to load module v41 (module requirement mismatch,0) # sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg 4) Revert your failed system If these questions do not make sense, and you can't either fix the driver errors or roll back the changes made adding virtualbox source, it would be easiest for you to just rebuild. Download a new ISO from distrowatch (or a new OS) and burn it to CD (or DVD if you have that luxury) carefully selecting the i386/686 versions and drop the hammer on this failed learning project, and go on to bigger and better things! After you rebuild your shiny new system, keep your BUILD DVD/CD, so you can use it to boot emergency for trouble/rebuild. Always keep a record of all steps that are done, (especially updates, etc. and test between upgrade installation steps) for packaging the issues for others. 5) If all this fails, take your box back to the InstallFesters and/or call one of us. Obnosis | (503)754-4452 PLUG Linux Security Labs 2nd Saturday Each mo...@noon - 3PM Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:38:32 -0700 Subject: Re: How to recover X display? From: j...@actionline.com To: plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us Now, I'm even more thoroughly confused. On 3/23/09, Lisa Kachold lisakach...@obnosis.com wrote: http://reformedmusings.wordpress.com/2008/12/11/installing-sun-virtualbox-6-guest-additions-in-linux-guests/ This is describing installing PCLinuxOS as a virtual machine inside a working Ubuntu-VirtualBox setup ... which doesn't seem to have anything to do with trying to get my installed PCLinuxOS system X recovered. The article says: Guest Additions installs from a CD iso file. I don't have any CD iso for this. The article then says: So, we need to load the iso as a CD in our virtual machine. For this, the virtual machine must be shut down (powered off). There is no way I can do this when my basic machine is not working. --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss Windows Live™ SkyDrive: Get 25 GB of free online storage. Check it out. Get quick access to your favorite MSN content with Internet Explorer 8. Download FREE now! --- PLUG-discuss mailing list -
Re: How to recover X display? v.1.1
On 3/24/09, Lisa Kachold lisakach...@obnosis.com wrote: Post installation of Virtualbox, your Xorg logs say what? www.upquick.com/view/Xorg.0.log 42660 Apr 14 2007 Xorg.1.log.old 45158 Mar 19 2008 Xorg.1.log 14929 Mar 22 23:28 Xorg.9.log 14294 Mar 23 10:35 Xorg.0.log.old 14493 Mar 23 10:36 Xorg.0.log I also copied this file: 2974 Apr 6 2007 xorg.conf It can be viewed at this link: www.upquick.com/view/xorg.conf First try this: # sudo Xconfigurator You can try to configure your monitor and video card for X via this utility. Might work, it's worth a try...[but not highly probable]. I can't find 'Xconfigurator' on the system, don't think I have it. 2) Update/upgrade your system, although this might have been what caused it. sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade # sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg Wish I could, but I don't know how to get an internet connection with only command line access. --- Here are some other files that I copied from the laptop, (thanks to Matt's explanation of how to get the USB flash stick mounted) Have not yet uploaded any of these to a web page, but could if they might help. 1408 Mar 21 13:53 vbox-install.log 7073 Mar 22 04:02 warnings.1.gz 22570 Mar 22 04:02 info.1.gz 790 Mar 22 04:02 errors.1.gz 1008834 Mar 23 17:10 messages 13947 Mar 23 17:10 dmesg 16 Mar 23 17:14 kernel.errors 34511 Mar 23 17:15 warnings 588685 Mar 23 17:15 info 829597 Mar 23 17:15 errors 1032 Mar 23 17:21 mar22logs 4022 Mar 23 17:29 vbox.files 972 Mar 23 17:36 boot.dirlist --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: How to recover X display? v.1.1
From: Josef Lowder j...@actionline.com On 3/24/09, Lisa Kachold lisakach...@obnosis.com wrote: Post installation of Virtualbox, your Xorg logs say what? www.upquick.com/view/Xorg.0.log That one doesn't have any errors in it, though. The .9 log has the v4l version mismatch error in it, but the others don't. Very strange. www.upquick.com/view/xorg.conf That looks fine to me, though I'd use radeon instead of ati, because ati is really for driving Mach64 cards, although it will load radeon or r128 if it detects a Radeon or Rage128 card. # sudo Xconfigurator I can't find 'Xconfigurator' on the system, don't think I have it. The X config is fine, except it's loading v4l (and maybe other modules) that have the wrong versions. I suppose you could comment out v4l, glx, and dri, restart X, and see if it works--that'd take 5 minutes. (It's totally hork up compiz-fusion, but you should get X back.) The non-distro-specific way of generating a good X config file is to back up an existing xorg.conf , then X -configure, then edit the xorg.conf that gets generated and change the default color depth to something other than 8. It's not insanely great, but it does work. sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade # sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg Wish I could, but I don't know how to get an internet connection with only command line access. Are you on dialup? That'd be semi-annoying, but should be possible. You'd need to do something with wvdial or the pppd config though. The last time I used dialup was 5 years ago. If you've got proper bloody bandwidth, dhclient eth0 or dhcpcd eth0 should get a dynamic IP address provided eth0 is plugged in to something. Here are some other files that I copied from the laptop, Heck. From what I can tell, the problem is X and X's modules not being the same version. Fix the Net access and apt-get upgrade, and you should be good. (I Could Be Wrong.) -- Matt G / Dances With Crows The Crow202 Blog: http://crow202.org/wordpress/ There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: How to recover X display? v.1.1
On 3/24/09, Matt Graham danceswithcr...@usa.net wrote: Are you on dialup? If you've got proper bandwidth, dhclient eth0 or dhcpcd eth0 should get a dynamic IP address provided eth0 is plugged in to something. I have DSL wireless and it was working fine before the crash. Even now, when I boot up, I see lights blinking on the 3-COM pci card, but since I can't see anything on F7 I can't use the wireless connection that I think I have. And I don't know how to establish that connection on one of the other F1-F6 command-line only terminals. Fix the Net access and apt-get upgrade, and you should be good. (I Could Be Wrong.) Wish I could. --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: How to recover X display? v.1.1
From: Josef Lowder j...@actionline.com On 3/24/09, Matt Graham danceswithcr...@usa.net wrote: Are you on dialup? If you've got proper bandwidth, dhclient eth0 or dhcpcd eth0 should get a dynamic IP address provided eth0 is plugged in to something. I have DSL wireless and it was working fine before the crash. Even now, when I boot up, I see lights blinking on the 3-COM pci card, but since I can't see anything on F7 I can't use the wireless connection that I think I have. And I don't know how to establish that connection on one of the other F1-F6 command-line only terminals. First find out what your NIC is called. iwconfig should list all NICs, and the wired ones will say no wireless extensions. So you might see: eth0: no wireless extensions eth1: 802.11b/g ESSID blah Mode managed TxPower 89 FooBar 23 [more settings like that] lo: no wireless extensions Then, you do dhcpcd eth1 if you have no encryption on and don't care which AP you connect to. Things get more complex when you use WEP/WPA, but say which one you're using, and I or someone else will be able to tell you what's up. Really, I'd take a length of Cat5 and plug the thing in, rather than deal with the hassle of wireless for this reasonably short experiment. Fix the Net access and apt-get upgrade, and you should be good. (I Could Be Wrong.) Wish I could. The stuff above may help. -- Matt G / Dances With Crows The Crow202 Blog: http://crow202.org/wordpress/ There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: How to recover X display? v.1.1
So now I have done a complete system update: 618 upgraded 198 newly installed 29 replaced 3 removed 5 not upgraded 766 MB of archives - after unpacking 47.3MB of add'l disk space used more than 2 hours of installing upgrades and the result ... drum roll ... Still no X --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: How to recover X display? v.1.1
Forgot to mention: For PCLInuxOS, instead of this: sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade sudo did not work for me, so searched further and from a PCLinuxOS source, I learned that as root I needed to do this: apt-get clean apt-get autoclean apt-get update apt-get dist-upgrade From one of your previous replies, you included this: # sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg Do I still need to do that? --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
RE: How to recover X display? v.1.1
If you cannot startx without still seeing the whining about the two video drivers mismatch, you do want to reconfigure your xserver.xorg and possibly rerun xconfigurator? It's certainly not going to hurt! Obnosis | (503)754-4452 PLUG Linux Security Labs 2nd Saturday Each mo...@noon - 3PM Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:49:54 -0700 Subject: Re: How to recover X display? v.1.1 From: j...@actionline.com To: plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us Forgot to mention: For PCLInuxOS, instead of this: sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade sudo did not work for me, so searched further and from a PCLinuxOS source, I learned that as root I needed to do this: apt-get clean apt-get autoclean apt-get update apt-get dist-upgrade From one of your previous replies, you included this: # sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg Do I still need to do that? --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss _ Windows Live™ SkyDrive: Get 25 GB of free online storage. http://windowslive.com/online/skydrive?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_skydrive_032009--- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
RE: How to recover X display? v.1.1
Good job on the upgrade. It's never indicated to run a system in anything but a fully patched OS. What is your system whining about (logs)? Did you run the dpkg reconfigure against x? Remember to lay your logs on if different. Obnosis | (503)754-4452 PLUG Linux Security Labs 2nd Saturday Each mo...@noon - 3PM Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:44:18 -0700 Subject: Re: How to recover X display? v.1.1 From: j...@actionline.com To: plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us So now I have done a complete system update: 618 upgraded 198 newly installed 29 replaced 3 removed 5 not upgraded 766 MB of archives - after unpacking 47.3MB of add'l disk space used more than 2 hours of installing upgrades and the result ... drum roll ... Still no X --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss _ Express your personality in color! Preview and select themes for Hotmail®. http://www.windowslive-hotmail.com/LearnMore/personalize.aspx?ocid=TXT_MSGTX_WL_HM_express_032009#colortheme--- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
RE: How to recover X display? v.1.1
Well, with PCLinuxOs, I believe that x had the video drivers packaged differently between versions, so it might not be so simple. Anyone competent with PCLinuxOs might want to contact him off list and offer a phone session assist? Obnosis | (503)754-4452 PLUG Linux Security Labs 2nd Saturday Each mo...@noon - 3PM Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:41:11 -0700 From: danceswithcr...@usa.net To: plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us Subject: Re: How to recover X display? v.1.1 From: Josef Lowder j...@actionline.com On 3/24/09, Matt Graham danceswithcr...@usa.net wrote: Are you on dialup? If you've got proper bandwidth, dhclient eth0 or dhcpcd eth0 should get a dynamic IP address provided eth0 is plugged in to something. I have DSL wireless and it was working fine before the crash. Even now, when I boot up, I see lights blinking on the 3-COM pci card, but since I can't see anything on F7 I can't use the wireless connection that I think I have. And I don't know how to establish that connection on one of the other F1-F6 command-line only terminals. First find out what your NIC is called. iwconfig should list all NICs, and the wired ones will say no wireless extensions. So you might see: eth0: no wireless extensions eth1: 802.11b/g ESSID blah Mode managed TxPower 89 FooBar 23 [more settings like that] lo: no wireless extensions Then, you do dhcpcd eth1 if you have no encryption on and don't care which AP you connect to. Things get more complex when you use WEP/WPA, but say which one you're using, and I or someone else will be able to tell you what's up. Really, I'd take a length of Cat5 and plug the thing in, rather than deal with the hassle of wireless for this reasonably short experiment. Fix the Net access and apt-get upgrade, and you should be good. (I Could Be Wrong.) Wish I could. The stuff above may help. -- Matt G / Dances With Crows The Crow202 Blog: http://crow202.org/wordpress/ There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss _ Hotmail® is up to 70% faster. Now good news travels really fast. http://windowslive.com/online/hotmail?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_70faster_032009--- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
