I will try as best I can with answers.
Ok, now I recognize it. Aren't you being just a little bit impatient? ;)
Remember that you are not a customer (of us) nor are the others on this
list your help desk. We are just people who either use or develop
XFree86, many as unpaid volunteers.
I bought this system 12/24 and have never had X work properly. Yes, I am a bit (understatement) frustrated. I am sorry if it appears to be impatience. These lists (here and others) have been providing valuable information and I appreciate all of the volunteer work that is taking place. I guess its just my frustration getting out of hand (someone said 30% of learning Linux is learning new ways to cuss).
> I have put in the 4.2.20 kernel - just fine now. I installed the XFree86
Yes, kernel, but I goofed with the # it is 2.4.20. Sorry, The first instructions I received indicated I needed the 2.4.20 kernel so I started down that line. See http://www.xfree86.org/~dawes/845driver.html .
> 4.2.99.3 binaries and things stopped.
>
> I just did a XFree86 -configure and put the resulting configuration file in
> /etc/X11/XF86Config. I restarted the system. I did a startx. Nothing but
> blank screen. Edited the config file and replaced the i810 driver with
> vesa. restarted the system again. I did a startx. This time I got
ok, so the driver didn't actually work :(
Yeah, but I don't know why. I figure I pursue that one after I get my Gnome back and get the startx restarting problem solved.
I was hoping the kernel and the binaries would solve the restart problem. No luck so far.
I'll take any hints in the meantime however.
what is the contents of your .xinitrc file? Mine just says:
exec gnome-session
I don't have an .xinitrc file. (at least ' find . | grep xinitrc ' from / doesn't find it)
I do have a /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc file and it has a lot of stuff in it. it does end with:
- # start some nice programs
- twm &
- xclock -geometry ... &
- xterm -geometry ... &
- xterm -geometry ... &
- exec xterm -geometry .... -name login
- twm &
> 2) Must I always reboot after I stop a startx? If I don't I just get a
> blank screen.
No, you shouldn't need to. You don't describe above that you need to.
Can you say more about this?
(Curses for thirty minutes before realizing you must have meant a description of what happens, not how I feel :)
Before the kernel and binaries (and since also). I can only startx one time. To get anything at all I have to use the vesa driver. (The Anaconda graphical install had much better color and resolution qualities).
I boot to a text login. login as root. startx. Do whatever. stopx (via Ctrl-Alt-Backspace - the only way I know how). Do anything or do nothing, cannot get another startx to give me a screen back. What I get is a flash and a blank screen.
Below is an exact description of what happens (I am writing this description as I do it again to make sure I get it just right):
When I startx the first time after a boot, I get a brief flash of text and then the screen goes blank accompanied with a distinct click sound, the garbled video buffer shows whatever was there, the screen blanks and then the graphical session data appears.
When I hit Ctrl-Alt-F1, I get that click and the startup log text appears. down to the line Using config file:
When I hit any of the other consoles (F2-F6) - no clicks, but the login screen for each appears.
When I hit Ctrl-Alt-F7, I get a blank screen and click together and nothing else happens.
I can do this repeatedly.
Then I Ctrl-Alt-Backspace, I get a click and the text on F1 reappears with some new messages fussing that the X connection to :0.0 broken and some more as the xterms, login, xinit come crashing down and then waiting for X server to shut down. I switch over to console F2, login and do a ps -ef | grep 'x' (with both upper and lowercase x) and only xfs -droppriv -daemon appears (well, klogd -x and xinitd also, but...).
When I startx again (from console F1), I get a flash with a bit of color and the click and end up with a blank screen. Going back to console F1 doesn't show any error messages.
If I look at the log, I don't get any EE messages, and only (WW) VESA(0): Bad V_Bios checksum (I seem to get it twice however). Lots of -- ** II and == stuff.
Well, that's what happens. Any Ideas, hints, pointers, things to try?
I appreciate y'all helping me with this,
-g
