Problems with X on old Dell D800

lowrez · 2015-10-29 01:03:14

I'm trying to get Arch running on a Dell D800 laptop with an old NV28M card. No matter what I do I can't get an X session running. Here are the steps I'm taking.

1. installed xorg server 1.12 [city repo]
2. installed nvidia-96xx-dkms [city repo]
3. installed blackbox
4. installed xorg-xinit
5. blackbox, startx, and xinit commands all fail.

blackbox error

bt::Display: failed to open display ''

openbox error

Openbox-Message: Failed to open the display from the DISPLAY environment variable.

xinit and startx error

xinit: unable to connect to X server: Connection refused

Any ideas on what I'm missing?

Trilby · 2015-10-29 01:24:13

Of course you can't run a window manager without X. Startx or xinit should work if you have configured them correctly, but if you are trying to start your WM from the tty I am guessing you have not followed the wiki:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xorg

Is that the only output from an attempt at xinit or startx?

lowrez · 2015-10-29 01:44:04

Of course you can't run a window manager without X. That is why I installed xorg server 1.12 in my first step. I've followed the link you've posted closely as possible considering I'm using old video drivers and an old version of X.

From xinit I'm also seeing...

Fatal server error:
no screens found

Trilby · 2015-10-29 01:47:14

Please post the *full* output.

It appears you do not yet have the correct video driver. Can you post the output of `lspci | grep -i vga`?

lowrez · 2015-10-29 02:00:52

I have no easy way of posting the full output of xinit/startx. I'm manually typing the output from my working computer.

lspci | grep -i vga

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation NV28M [GeForce4 Ti 4200 Go AGP 8x] (rev a1)

In step 2 I installed nvidia-96xx-dkms based on what I read here:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NVIDIA

Trilby · 2015-10-29 02:06:44

You'd probably have better luck with the noveau driver. Unless you need something fancy for high performance games or the like the open-source drivers can often be a better bet. And in this case that may be even more so the case as you can have current open source drivers or old proprietary.

lowrez · 2015-10-29 02:27:35

I do 3D modeling for Second Life so I need all the performance I can get. Here is some more info though.

cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep EE

[    757.957] (EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to load the NVIDIA kernel module!
[    757.957] (EE) NVIDIA(0): *** Aborting ***
[    757.957] (EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.

Arch Linux

#1 2015-10-29 01:03:14

Problems with X on old Dell D800

#2 2015-10-29 01:24:13

Re: Problems with X on old Dell D800

#3 2015-10-29 01:44:04

Re: Problems with X on old Dell D800

#4 2015-10-29 01:47:14

Re: Problems with X on old Dell D800

#5 2015-10-29 02:00:52

Re: Problems with X on old Dell D800

#6 2015-10-29 02:06:44

Re: Problems with X on old Dell D800

#7 2015-10-29 02:27:35

Re: Problems with X on old Dell D800

Board footer