Crux up and running - but still no gui

[hazel]

If you're wondering where I've been the last few days, I installed Crux on Monday and I've been wrestling with it ever since. I finally decided I needed help after all the tricks I tried in order to get X to work proved unsuccessful.

The actual installation wasn't too difficult. It's very similar to Gentoo: format your partition, install the base system, chroot in, compile and install the kernel, edit a few config files and boot. Of course there were glitches - you expect those - but fewer than before because I knew this time around that I had to make an e3fs system with 128-byte inodes to be compatible with grub. And I only had to compile the kernel twice. With Gentoo it took three goes!

The installation guide recommends that you do a prt-get sysup after installing. So I did and, to my astonishment, it reinstalled practically every package on the system. The packages they use on the installation disk must be pretty ancient. It was updating all Monday night and still going strong in the morning.

Well, that's over now but it's left xorg in an unusable state. The version of the server doesn't match the video drivers. Here's what I got when I tried to configure X:

X.Org X Server 1.6.1
Release Date: 2009-4-14
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
Build Operating System: Linux 2.6.27.8 i686 
Current Operating System: Linux scenic 2.6.27.8 #1 Mon Jun 29 16:25:33 UTC 2009 i686
Build Date: 30 June 2009  08:26:17PM
 
	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: Wed Jul  1 14:25:10 2009
List of video drivers:
	intel
	i128
	vesa
(EE) module ABI major version (4) doesn't match the server's version (5)
(EE) Failed to load module "intel" (module requirement mismatch, 0)
(EE) module ABI major version (4) doesn't match the server's version (5)
(EE) Failed to load module "vesa" (module requirement mismatch, 0)
No devices to configure.  Configuration failed.

I thought I could sort it out by getting rid of the drivers and reinstalling xorg-xf86-video-i128, which is the only one I actually need, building it against the currently running server. But while it built all right, it still doesn't run.

This was a rather bruising experience. But there are things about Crux that I already rather like. It's wonderfully frugal, using less that half of my 4GB partition and it can do all its builds in the remaining space, which is more than Gentoo could. And there's no pre-customisation: no crontab file, no scripts except init scripts, no default bash initialisation. You have to decide how you want things done and then write the scripts yourself. It's a good way to learn things.

[Tsarevich]

I ran a thread long back here, it has everything on CRUX for newbies (thanks to Dapper Dan):

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/oth...x-install.html

The answer to yours is at the end of page 3.

[hazel]

That's a useful thread but the problem there was in the window manager. The problem I have is that X doesn't even start because there's a version discrepancy between the server and the video card driver (maybe with the mouse and keyboard drivers too but I don't think it got around to testing them).

As far as I can see, the rest of the system is working well.

[reed9]

Well, you beat the hell out of me. I was never able to get it to boot at all. I'll stick with my beautiful Arch and let you hardcore folks go at the source distros.

[hazel]

If you're wondering where I've been the last few days, I installed Crux on Monday and I've been wrestling with it ever since. I finally decided I needed help after all the tricks I tried in order to get X to work proved unsuccessful.

The actual installation wasn't too difficult. It's very similar to Gentoo: format your partition, install the base system, chroot in, compile and install the kernel, edit a few config files and boot. Of course there were glitches - you expect those - but fewer than before because I knew this time around that I had to make an e3fs system with 128-byte inodes to be compatible with grub. And I only had to compile the kernel twice. With Gentoo it took three goes!

The installation guide recommends that you do a prt-get sysup after installing. So I did and, to my astonishment, it reinstalled practically every package on the system. The packages they use on the installation disk must be pretty ancient. It was updating all Monday night and still going strong in the morning.

Well, that's over now but it's left xorg in an unusable state. The version of the server doesn't match the video drivers. Here's what I got when I tried to configure X:

X.Org X Server 1.6.1
Release Date: 2009-4-14
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
Build Operating System: Linux 2.6.27.8 i686 
Current Operating System: Linux scenic 2.6.27.8 #1 Mon Jun 29 16:25:33 UTC 2009 i686
Build Date: 30 June 2009  08:26:17PM
 
	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: Wed Jul  1 14:25:10 2009
List of video drivers:
	intel
	i128
	vesa
(EE) module ABI major version (4) doesn't match the server's version (5)
(EE) Failed to load module "intel" (module requirement mismatch, 0)
(EE) module ABI major version (4) doesn't match the server's version (5)
(EE) Failed to load module "vesa" (module requirement mismatch, 0)
No devices to configure.  Configuration failed.

I thought I could sort it out by getting rid of the drivers and reinstalling xorg-xf86-video-i128, which is the only one I actually need, building it against the currently running server. But while it built all right, it still doesn't run.

This was a rather bruising experience. But there are things about Crux that I already rather like. It's wonderfully frugal, using less that half of my 4GB partition and it can do all its builds in the remaining space, which is more than Gentoo could. And there's no pre-customisation: no scripts except init scripts, no default bash initialisation. You have to decide how you want things done and then write the scripts yourself. It's a good way to learn things.

Update: I've found out how to reinstall things. It's not enough to remove them; you have to remove the old tarballs too and start again from scratch.

[Rubberman]

Hazel, I'm glad you're having fun! Nothing like hacking a new distribution to keep one out of the fridge for awhile! Keep us posted on your progress, ok?

[hazel]

Got it!!! I needed the "intel" driver. I'd been using i810 on all my other distros but Crux doesn't have it. And of course I needed to re-install all relevant drivers (mouse, keyboard, intel) after removing them and getting rid of the old tarballs.

Mind you, that just got rid of the mismatch errors. It still didn't give me a GUI. Because I'd forgotten to build apgart and dri support into the kernel. So I had to rebuild that.

But it's up and running now and I'm writing this post out of it.

Now I have to work out how to make the system clock tell the right time.

[Rubberman]

Re. Telling the time. It sounds like you need to compile the timezone database set set your RTC and timezone appropriately. You should be able to do that without taking the system offline. Also, you can enable the ntp client software to sync your clock with one of the nist time servers on a regular bases. Usually once an hour, or even once a day, is sufficient to keep the clock pretty close to "exact".