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#1 2010-08-02 03:17:06

archerxn
Member
Registered: 2010-08-02
Posts: 4

Blank screen after installing X

Hi all

After stumbling my way through an Arch install and getting my wireless to work, I've hit a brick wall. After installing X as per the instructions on the Arch X wiki page, I typed "startx", and my screen went blank. After turning off my laptop by holding down the power button and then turning it on again, whenever I try to boot into arch I get the blank screen again, after "Waiting for Udev events to be processed."

Can anyone shed any light on this problem?

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#2 2010-08-02 03:23:15

karol
Archivist
Registered: 2009-05-06
Posts: 25,440

Re: Blank screen after installing X

archerxn wrote:

Hi all

After stumbling my way through an Arch install and getting my wireless to work, I've hit a brick wall. After installing X as per the instructions on the Arch X wiki page, I typed "startx", and my screen went blank. After turning off my laptop by holding down the power button and then turning it on again, whenever I try to boot into arch I get the blank screen again, after "Waiting for Udev events to be processed."

Can anyone shed any light on this problem?

We need way more info:
- what graphics card and video driver are you using,
- are you booting into console or X,
- are there any interesting errors / warning in the logs (kernel and xorg) - if so, post them.

I think Ctrl-Alt-Backspace or Ctrl-Alt-Del would be enough, no need to reset via the power button. Next time you can try to switch to a tty - e.g. tty1 and kill the X server.

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#3 2010-08-02 03:36:09

archerxn
Member
Registered: 2010-08-02
Posts: 4

Re: Blank screen after installing X

Oh right;

I'm booting into console, and I don't think I can access any logs because of the blank screen. I've tried to switch to a tty, but again, blank screen.

I'm using a laptop that has an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 graphics card, as well as an onboard Intel Graphics Media Accelerator GPU.
I installed the latest fglrx driver, had the issue I described above, and then reinstalled and used the xf86-video-ati driver - same problem.

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#4 2010-08-02 03:41:52

karol
Archivist
Registered: 2009-05-06
Posts: 25,440

Re: Blank screen after installing X

You can try booting into single mode (append 's' to the kernel line in grub) or use a liveCD/USB. Try toggling KMS.
Are all ttys are blank or just tty1? Can you start X by "blindly" typing it in?

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#5 2010-08-02 03:58:05

archerxn
Member
Registered: 2010-08-02
Posts: 4

Re: Blank screen after installing X

All ttys are blank and I can't start X blindly. I can restart using ctrl+alt+del though, as you suggested.

Booting into single mode worked. The screen doesn't blank after the "Waiting for Udev..." line and after logging into console I can start X. What does this mean?
How do I toggle KMS?

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#6 2010-08-02 04:01:53

karol
Archivist
Registered: 2009-05-06
Posts: 25,440

Re: Blank screen after installing X

> How do I toggle KMS?
I meant that if you use KMS - disable it, and if you don't use it, enable it.

Now you can check the logs for any weird things.

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#7 2010-08-02 04:03:22

archerxn
Member
Registered: 2010-08-02
Posts: 4

Re: Blank screen after installing X

Right. OK, will do.

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#8 2010-08-02 14:40:05

Doehni
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 2007-05-19
Posts: 175

Re: Blank screen after installing X

I also have an ATI graphics card with xf86-video-ati driver and your problem looks like KMS. I also have that problem.

To disable KMS just put radeon.modeset=0 in the grub kernel line

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