xorg-server update, nvidia, and kdemod4 [SOLVED]

archdave · 2008-12-06 19:21:16

Intel Core 2 Duo
NVidia GeForce 8300GS
Two Monitors, Dell 22 inch (1680x1050) and a Dell 19 inch (1280x1024)
Micro Inovations USB Keyboard with special keys (internet, music player, system buttons, etc)
Dell Premium USB Optical Mouse
KDEmod4

After spending a few days (on and off) trying to get xorg-server input hotplugging to work I've given up.
Reasons:
1) This is a desktop machine, uses one keyboard, one mouse, never changes
2) Mouse worked without problems but the keyboard just wouldn't (yes I read the input hotplugging page on the wiki)

What I finally did to return to sanity:
1) set /etc/inittab to start in level 5 and run kdm

## Only one of the following two lines can be uncommented!
# Boot to console
#id:3:initdefault:
# Boot to X11
id:5:initdefault:

# Example lines for starting a login manager
#x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/xdm -nodaemon
#x:5:respawn:/usr/sbin/gdm -nodaemon
x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/kdm -nodaemon
#x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/slim >& /dev/null

2) Why? I like to use kde and automatically boot to a login screen. If I have X11 problems I simply boot with "init 3" appended to my kernel line (in grub, everyone should learn to do this):

kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda8 ro irqpoll quiet init 3

Or, you could ctrl-alt-backspace from X11/KDE, dropping to a command line prompt with instructions, enter your root password, and do the "init 3" there.

3) Whichever you use, at the root command line in level 3 do this:

(note: you might like to copy these to another location, first, just for your own piece of mind)
cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf* /root/
rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf*
nvidia-xconfig

4) Now you have a nice clean /etc/X11/xorg.conf
It's time to add the input hotplugging disable lines:

Section "ServerFlags"
    Option         "AutoAddDevices" "False"
EndSection

(To see the final product, check out the link below):

5) After trying setting "evdev keyboard" and many variations of other settings during the attempt to enable input hotplugging, kdemod4 simply refused to acknowlege the keyboard at all. These were done from Menu, System Settings, Regional and Settings, Country/Region & Language and Keyboard Layout. The final thing I did that finally allowed return to sanity was to delete my /home/$USER/.kde4 directory.

rm -rf /home/dave/.kde4
#where $USER is equal to "dave" in my case

6) You can now either do "init 5" or just type "reboot" or "ctrl-alt-del", your preference.

7) Now you should be rebooted and seeing the kdm login screen. Login. It takes a while to recreate your .kde4 settings so be patient. Once in, you can run NVIDIA X Server Settings from the menu to set up twinview if you have two monitors. Note that with twinview setup it is (Revised: removed the word "NOT") necessary to start NVIDIA X Server Settings as root and save the changes to the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. A file /home/$USER/.nvidia-settings-rc will be created with the necessary saved settings. Added: It seems if you don't save the settings to your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file there is no working way to reload ~/.nvidia-settings-rc

To see the final product, check out:
http://pastebin.com/f50803736

Good luck!

Last edited by archdave (2008-12-22 00:12:39)

Arch Linux

#1 2008-12-06 19:21:16

xorg-server update, nvidia, and kdemod4 [SOLVED]

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