[solved] xorg crashes at startx

pottzie · 2011-06-18 03:31:02

I'm going by what I'm finding in the arch Wikis. I've installed xorg, going with the (default) vesa driver. I've also installed gnome as a window manager. When i enter startx, my monitor goes blank and I get panel saying "input not supported."

So far I've been "fixing" this by turning the computer off and restarting. Of course, this makes a file check mandatory, and i have to go through a couple of reboots. I know there's a way to open another terminal, but I haven't found it yet. I'm holding ctrl/alt while going through all the f# keys, but I can't find another terminal anywhere.

Last edited by pottzie (2011-06-20 18:20:26)

pottzie · 2011-06-18 04:50:55

Just whacked away at it some more, following the wiki's and this from Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azySq-uB … ure=fvwrel

A lot of good info, but part of the video showed adding gdm to the DAEMONS list. Now when i reboot, x crashes before I get to a terminal! What's the key to unlocking another terminal so I can fix this thing? Or do I have to go at it with another distro's live cd and chroot into Arch?? I don't want to do that if I don't have to, natch!

ewaller · 2011-06-18 05:29:19

What happens if you just press Ctrl-Alt-F1 ??

Is your system set up so that you can SSH in? Can You?

If those do not work, try adding init=/bin/bash to the kernel command line in grub. (hit 'e' during the countdown to edit the kernel command line)
This will let you edit /etc/rc.conf. Prior to exiting the shell, perform a sync. When the shell exits, the kernel will panic.

Last edited by ewaller (2011-06-18 05:34:13)

stlarch · 2011-06-18 05:30:11

Can you tell us more about your hardware. Ctrl+Alt+F# should work?

pottzie · 2011-06-18 13:01:13

WOW! I edited the grub to init=/bin/bash. I was a little fuzzy on where to put it, so I edited both HD0,0 AND the kernel line. When it rebooted, the first few lines were "Fatal. no file blah, blah, doesn't exist.." I didn't have a chance to write which file it was. I figured the whole system was going to crash anyway and I'd have to deal with a lot more than that.
Then the system went ahead and loaded gnome! Why or what happened that was different I have no idea! I'm delighted, of course! I have no mouse control whatsoever, the mouse cursor doesn't move and my mouse (a laser mouse, not a track ball) doesn't show that it's even 'turned on,' as the led light that lights up when it gets it's signal from the computer showing that the power is on doesn't light up. The keyboard doesn't show any response either, and there are no led's turned on above num lock and caps lock. X started but evidently has a few holes to fill.
Ctrl/Alt and #F1 gets me a blank screen, no bash shell showing, just all black without the monitor telling me that there's no signal like it does when it senses the computer is down. Tried hitting some keys, nothing happens. Still, I'm excited and it looks promising!

I installed openssh but haven't edited anything in my file system, including changing localhost to anything else.

pottzie · 2011-06-18 13:12:44

Odd. I rebooted so I could grab the file that was showing the fatal error. Now there's no gnome. This seems to happen after "starting GDM". Now when I hit Ctr/Alt#F1 the screen flashes black for a second and goes immediately to "Input not supported" showing no input signal. I don't know why it got as far as it did earlier, and I don't know why it doesn't start gnome now. Who knows? So close, but so far away, I guess.

I haven't been able to edit rc.conf

Last edited by pottzie (2011-06-18 13:15:16)

stqn · 2011-06-18 13:21:16

You shouldn't have edited the root line, just the kernel line.

Does your computer work under another OS? (From a live Linux distro for example.)

roygbiv · 2011-06-18 13:24:19

ewaller wrote:

If those do not work, try adding init=/bin/bash to the kernel command line in grub. (hit 'e' during the countdown to edit the kernel command line)
This will let you edit /etc/rc.conf. Prior to exiting the shell, perform a sync. When the shell exits, the kernel will panic.

pottzie wrote:

WOW! I edited the grub to init=/bin/bash. I was a little fuzzy on where to put it, so I edited both HD0,0 AND the kernel line ...

You should only edit the kernel line in /boot/grub/menu.lst.

Edit: Darn..

Last edited by roygbiv (2011-06-18 13:25:03)

pottzie · 2011-06-18 13:58:34

Seems to work anyway...sorta. I hit "e" while grub boots, and I can get a screen showing:

grub edit> initrd /kerne26.img

There's a flashing cursor immediately after that, but I've tried "nano /etc/rc.conf (failed) and just /etc/rc.conf. But when I hit "enter" it goes back to grub's bootloading screen.

I can go in with a live cd from another distro. I have 32 bit Linux Mint handy, and after seeing what Ubuntu has managed to screw up with it's new set up, I think using Mint will work better., as it uses a traditional gnome, but has the same terminal gizzards as Ubuntu. I'm game if anyone else can get me in that way. The main thing will be the partitions, I seem to remember there being being four (I just went with all the defaults when I ran set-up.)

pottzie · 2011-06-18 14:39:01

Hey, lookie what I did. Booted Mint, opened the terminal and ran:
sudo su --
mint mint # mkdir /mnt/arch
mint mint # mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/arch
mint mint # nano /mnt/arch/etc/rc.conf

And was able to edit rc.conf and removed the gdm from the DAEMONS list! As long as I've got this working, is there anything else I can do? Kinda nice to have the copy-and-paste option.

This makes all the grief I had getting Gentoo to work seem like I actually learned something from the crew over there. They actually admit that as far as they're concerned, they wouldn't even make their own installation media. Why bother when there are so many other really good ones, and they can just use the terminal from another distro and walk new users through it. Of course, it took them a month to actually GET me through it, but that's another story.

Varg · 2011-06-18 14:51:26

When you edit the grub menu entry during boot it is not saved and used for that boot only.
When editing grub during boot you obviously don't have a program like nano because you system didn't boot yet.
When you boot and you get the grub menu, select the entry with your arrow keys and press 'e'. Normally there's some text at the bottom of the screen that shows you the commands: 'e' to edit a line. So select the kernel line, press 'e' make the changes, 'enter' and as the text says 'b' to boot.

I'd say put a 3 at the end of the kernel line ( and only the kernel line ). That will get you in runlevel 3 and you should be able to get in a console. If it doens't work try 1.

When it works post the output of:

lspci | grep -i VGA

Your rc.conf and maybe Xorg.conf or ( Xorg.conf.d/10-monitor.conf ) could be helpful to.
I don't think that the vesa driver is a good idea, you'll be better of with the appropriate driver for your hardware.

Don't just do things but think about what you are doing and keep track of what you do and what goes wrong. That way it's easier for us to help you. ( Your posts are a bit chaotic for me )

pottzie · 2011-06-18 15:20:14

My mind is a bit chaotic! After the edit, here's rc.conf.
http://pastebin.com/SV929hp9
lspci:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV43 [GeForce 6600] (rev a2)

To be able to show what I have in Xorg, I need to know what to use for nano. /etc/Xorg.conf didn't work.

Varg · 2011-06-18 15:45:34

Allright I don't have a Nvidia card but you might wan't to try the open source driver first: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Nouveau
It does not have 3D support yet but you should get X up and running. If it doesn't work, try the proprietary driver: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NVIDIA

After you installed the driver make a file in your home folder named ".xinitrc" ( with the dot, as it is a hidden file ) and put "exec xterm" in it.
Then use startx or xinit. When X works you'll get a xterm in the upper left corner, you should be able to type in it and see your mouse ( when it's over the xterm window ). When it doesn't work you'l have some output in the console that can help you further. When it works try to start gnome.

Nano should be installed be default. I mentioned it in my previous post because it looked as if you where trying to use nano when editing the grub lines during boot. Once you have booted and are in console you can use whatever text editor you like or the "cat" command.

Last edited by Varg (2011-06-18 15:47:16)

pottzie · 2011-06-18 16:30:39

OK, but just to make myself clear, I'm typing this from the computer I'm installing Arch on. I'm logged into Arch's terminal and can enter commands from this environment, which is a lot more convenient. I can nano and pacman -S without having to do anything else as far as Arch is concerned. If you want to see my xorg.conf, all I need to know is the full path so I can pull it up and copy it. It's a lot easier this way, for me anyhow.

I'm not worried about 3-d. I've never had it, and don't know if my video card can run it anyway.

Last edited by pottzie (2011-06-18 16:32:09)

pottzie · 2011-06-18 16:39:52

Just read the wiki. Will just running "pacman -S xf86-video-nouveau" do everything, or do I need to "Remove all "vga=" options from your kernel commandline in /boot/grub/menu.lst." as it says farther down the page?

Varg · 2011-06-18 17:12:11

When the wiki says to remove those things then it might be a good idea to do so.
Do pacman -Syy first, then install the driver.

BTW: is your system up to date ? You're still using the old rc.conf...

pottzie · 2011-06-18 17:26:36

The problem I'm having right now is that evidently I have to get bash to let me change to chroot to get pacman to work. If anyone knows Arch's file structure better than I do, maybe you can tell me what I have to do to get past this:

mint mint # mkdir /mnt/arch
mint mint # mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/arch
mint mint # mount /dev/sda1/ /mnt/arch/boot
mint mint # mount -o bind /proc /mnt/arch/proc
mint mint # mount -o bind /dev /mnt/arch/dev
mint mint # chroot /mnt/arch /bin/env -i TERM=$TERM /bin/bash
chroot: cannot run command `/bin/env': No such file or directory

Moving on with that, I wondered about updating the system myself. It looks like I've got an older kernel, as I know 2.6.38 is generally what everyone is using now. I've run -Syy, and several others, although I was vague as to what the different variations of -S did. I may have to break down and go back over the way you gave to get bash working from Arch. I like this way better, but don't know the magic words to make bash let me run pacman from a live cd.

Last edited by pottzie (2011-06-18 17:28:48)

pottzie · 2011-06-18 17:57:46

I just booted back into Arch with no problems and installed the nouveau driver. Since I removed gdm from the daemons list, I boot straight into a working bash session, no problems there now. Guess I have to make sure gnome works before adding it to the daemons list!
I ran -Syy (again) and it shows core, extra and community, but that's all. It seems that something should update the entire file system, so that I start off with a current layout. What's the point of installing everything into something outdated and then updating it? I know I'm missing something here.

Last edited by pottzie (2011-06-18 17:59:04)

pottzie · 2011-06-18 18:13:08

Just found out I'm running kernel 2.6.34

Varg · 2011-06-18 18:15:47

You can install Arch in two ways: core or net install. With the net install you'll install the latest packages. With the core install you have old packages and need to update as soon as you got a network connection and before installing anything else.

Use "man pacman" or "pacman -S --help" ( same goes for the -Q, -R,... options ) to see what every command and option does.

When your system is up to date try to start X as I mentioned in an earlier post.

pottzie · 2011-06-18 18:34:01

I used the net install. I just ran -Syu and it says I'm as cutting edge as I can be. Huh?
I tried startx to see what happened after installing the nouveau driver. Same as before, no input to the monitor. /boot/grub/menu.lst didn't show anything as far as VGA= goes

Varg · 2011-06-18 18:37:12

You do have a .xinitrc file with something in it? When you start X from a console you should see some output in it.
Check the Xorg.log file ( /var/log/ ) and start with a blank Xorg.conf ( /etc/X11/ ).

pottzie · 2011-06-18 21:03:24

Can you tell me what command I use to get the log file?
I created /etc/X11/Xorg.conf.

hokasch · 2011-06-18 22:13:13

Just found out I'm running kernel 2.6.34

I used the net install. I just ran -Syu and it says I'm as cutting edge as I can be. Huh?

Sounds like your mirror is very much out of date, have a look here.
Log files are in /var/log, use tail, cat, nano etc to view them.

BTW, please use the edit function instead of answering your own posts.

Last edited by hokasch (2011-06-18 22:13:46)

pottzie · 2011-06-18 22:45:59

Found out how to get the log file.
http://pastebin.com/dNtmCP9z

Arch Linux

#1 2011-06-18 03:31:02

[solved] xorg crashes at startx

#2 2011-06-18 04:50:55

Re: [solved] xorg crashes at startx

#3 2011-06-18 05:29:19

Re: [solved] xorg crashes at startx

#4 2011-06-18 05:30:11

Re: [solved] xorg crashes at startx

#5 2011-06-18 13:01:13

Re: [solved] xorg crashes at startx

#6 2011-06-18 13:12:44

Re: [solved] xorg crashes at startx

#7 2011-06-18 13:21:16

Re: [solved] xorg crashes at startx

#8 2011-06-18 13:24:19

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#9 2011-06-18 13:58:34

Re: [solved] xorg crashes at startx

#10 2011-06-18 14:39:01

Re: [solved] xorg crashes at startx

#11 2011-06-18 14:51:26

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#12 2011-06-18 15:20:14

Re: [solved] xorg crashes at startx

#13 2011-06-18 15:45:34

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#14 2011-06-18 16:30:39

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#15 2011-06-18 16:39:52

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#16 2011-06-18 17:12:11

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#17 2011-06-18 17:26:36

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#18 2011-06-18 17:57:46

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#19 2011-06-18 18:13:08

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#20 2011-06-18 18:15:47

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#21 2011-06-18 18:34:01

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#22 2011-06-18 18:37:12

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#23 2011-06-18 21:03:24

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#24 2011-06-18 22:13:13

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#25 2011-06-18 22:45:59

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