Arch Linux

NexusX

Member

Registered: 2009-06-13

Posts: 13

Cannot startx or xinitd

Hi all, I'm feeling like I"m knee deep in problems with X

I got Arch installed yesterday and the processes in general went through with just a minor hitch here or there, otherwise everything was fine.

I went along following the beginners guide getting packages installed and such, when I hit a wall at getting X working. The first issue came up when I tried starting X like this:

# X -config /etc/X11/xorg.conf

The screen turned black and never reverted. I couldn't CTRL+C or CTRL+ALT+DEL/BKSPC out of it, nor could I even switch TTyl's. I did a cold restart, edited xorg.config and gave it a few more tries but kept getting the resulting crash.

I then tried the other method of testing X as outlined in the Beginners guide, and the screen went black again, but then reverted back to console with this error:

hostname: Unknown host
xauth:  creating new authority file /home/fox/.serverauth.2740

[truncated misc info] 

X.Org X Server 1.6.1.901 (1.6.2 RC 1)
Release Date: 2009-5-8
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
Build Operating System: Linux 2.6.29-ARCH i686 
Current Operating System: Linux aurora-project 2.6.30-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Jun 19 21:25:17 UTC 2009 i686
Build Date: 28 May 2009  10:40:05PM
 
    Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
    to make sure that you have the latest version.
Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting,
    (++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational,
    (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Thu Jun 25 11:25:37 2009
(==) Using config file: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf"
xterm: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/libXcursor.so.1: undefined symbol: XRenderQueryExtension

waiting for X server to shut down

Another oddity concerning X is stemming from pacman. When I ran pacman to try to download libxxcursor this came back out:

warning: libxcursor-1.1.9-2 is up to date -- reinstalling
resolving dependencies...
error: could not open file /var/lib/pacman/local/libxrandr-1.3.0-1/depends: No such file or directory
error: could not open file /var/lib/pacman/local/libxrandr-1.3.0-1/depends: No such file or directory
looking for inter-conflicts...
error: could not open file /var/lib/pacman/local/libxrandr-1.3.0-1/depends: No such file or directory
error: could not open file /var/lib/pacman/local/libxrandr-1.3.0-1/depends: No such file or directory

Targets (3): renderproto-0.9.3-2  libxrender-0.9.4-2  libxcursor-1.1.9-2  

Total Download Size:    0.00 MB
Total Installed Size:   0.53 MB

checking package integrity...
checking for file conflicts...
error: could not prepare transaction
renderproto: /usr/include/X11/extensions/render.h exists in filesystem
renderproto: /usr/include/X11/extensions/renderproto.h exists in filesystem
renderproto: /usr/lib/pkgconfig/renderproto.pc exists in filesystem
renderproto: /usr/share/doc/renderproto/ exists in filesystem
renderproto: /usr/share/licenses/renderproto/ exists in filesystem
libxrender: /usr/include/X11/extensions/Xrender.h exists in filesystem
libxrender: /usr/lib/libXrender.a exists in filesystem
libxrender: /usr/lib/libXrender.so exists in filesystem
libxrender: /usr/lib/libXrender.so.1 exists in filesystem
libxrender: /usr/lib/libXrender.so.1.3.0 exists in filesystem
libxrender: /usr/lib/pkgconfig/xrender.pc exists in filesystem
Errors occurred, no packages were upgraded.

I don't know whats going on. I have a nVidia 8800GTX card, so I installed the proprietary nvidia driver and ran nvidia-xconfig to make my xorg.config file. I would greatly apperciate any help. The internals of xinitrc, xorg,config and Xorg.0.log.old can be found below

xinitrc:              http://dpaste.com/59714/
xorg.config:     http://dpaste.com/59715/
Xorg.0.log.old: http://dpaste.com/59738/

heimdal

Member

Registered: 2009-06-25

Posts: 27

Re: Cannot startx or xinitd

Not that it might help or hurt, do you have hal and fam DAEMONS running? Also the latest xorg as far as I know does not need to use the xorg.conf anymore. Also might want to do

 sudo pacman -R xorg

and just get everything all over again. just take it step by step backwards. Reinstall and try again. It might get it working

NexusX

Member

Registered: 2009-06-13

Posts: 13

Re: Cannot startx or xinitd

Well, looks like I'm screwed.

I tried removed nvidia and xorg, and now I can't reinstall them - every time I try pacman returns nothing but errors ranging from dependency's to "Already on filesyste" errors and then does nothing. Furthermore, no matter what it is I do in pacman, related to xorg or not, I'm getting pages of errors back. I don't even know what went wrong or where for that matter but now it looks like I have reinstall Arch... again. x_x

NexusX

Member

Registered: 2009-06-13

Posts: 13

Re: Cannot startx or xinitd

The way everything degraded, I kind of suspected something was up and I ran

fsck.ext4 -y /dev/mapper/nvidia_ghhfege5

from my Ubuntu install (nvidia_ghhfege5 being the partition that Arch is installed to (its a fake-RAID)) and got back a lot of errors, almost all of them files that pacman was complaing about (and man was it ever!) The errors fsck mentioned included "Multiply-Claimed blocks" and " Free inodes" or "Directories" being "cout wrong". Once fsck fixed everything it said  **** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED ****

So heres kind of what it comes down to -- is my Arch install fubar? Does this mean that my Hard Drive(s) are failing? My Ubuntu install is peachy at the moment, so I don't know what this says about the HD's.

Trent

Member

From: Baltimore, MD (US)

Registered: 2009-04-16

Posts: 990

Re: Cannot startx or xinitd

One thing at a time.

Pacman is complaining because your system retains traces of the packages which you removed and now desire to uninstall.  To suppress these errors and overwrite your old files, use the -f flag to pacman (usually this is not what you want, but in this case your original setup wasn't working anyway, so you have nothing to lose).

Pacman may also be complaining because some files which it expects to find are not there (possibly due to the filesystem problems you're experiencing).  If core files are missing, you should probably reinstall.  If it's problems with the database, sync it with pacman -Sy.

I'm not sure why your filesystem is messed up, but it seems likely that it is a result of powering off your computer while programs were in use.  It's not unusual.  Your hard drive is (probably) not failing, and your Arch install is (probably) recoverable.  That said, if you continue to have unusual problems, you may choose to simply reinstall.

When you have all the above solved and Xorg installed again, remove .xinitrc and xorg.conf, and run startx again.