Newbie Upgraded XFree86 4.2.0 to 4.3.0 problems now with X

Hello all,

Right I finally decided to try and learn how to use Linux. Friend pointed out that RedHat was a good one to start with. Please forgive me but I am very new to this so I know NOTHING!!!!!

This is what I have achieved so far:-

1. Downloaded the 3 iso's burned them onto CD (Took 18 hours to do that)
2. Downloaded the Docs iso and the 2 source iso's (More time, for future use)
3. Burned them onto CD's (I was impressed with myself)
4. Made some nice lables to lable them all, stuck to newly burned CD's

5. Have 40Gb hard drive, want 2 dual boot to run 20Gb with W98SE and 20GB with linux (cos i need the W98SE for a networked XP PC + will learn more I think)
6. Could not partition the drive so have accepted a loss of 8Gb due to W98SE fat32 will not see the last bit.
7. Now have 16Gb for W98SE and 16Gb for Linux

8. Installed W98SE along with needed software and it runs well enough
9. Installed RadHat Linux version 8.0 (Install process checked all cds and they are ok)
10. Installed as a workstaion with both X systems (KDE and KNome I think you call them)

11. Was impressed that i got this far!!! What I wanted to do next is to install the NVIDIA drivers from the Nvidia web site because my computer ran very slow and the extra games Chromium crashed the computer.
12. Spent a good week trying to work out which drivers i needed and then many attempts to install them. The Linux lA32 driver seemd to work in the end
13. Configured the /etc/X11/X86Config file to include the glx and nvidia bits and removed the other bits that it said to do.
14. Rebooted and to my complete surprise I got the NVIDIA logo on boot up and it worked fine (for the speed of my computer anyway) The game Chromium worked really well too with my GForce 4 Ti4200 graphix card.
15. Feeling rather chuffed with myself I attempted to load the upgrade to XFree86 4.3.0 as i had 4.2.0 on the system.

16. This is where I have got to and cannot get any further. Now It does say that I needed to exit the X console before installing (no idea how to do that so proceeded inside the X console. I new this could be a bad Idea but decided to proceed)
17. after install it said I needed to reconfigure the X console but it did not tell me how to do that so I just rebooted.
18. Ok it now would not start up the X config which did not surprise me! and after some fafing about I decided to reinstall the NVIDIA drivers.
19 To my initial surprise it seemed to work, I got the NVIDIA logo on bootup, I got my normal login screen, but after loging in as root, it simply goes to a screen which is very basic.

20 This screen has the following windows on it:

a, xsm: Default with Client list, Session Log, Checkpoint and Shutdown bits on it
b, A second window that comes alive on pressing the left mouse which is basically the terminal (shell thingy) which I can access the various drives etc.

Sorry for the long explination but I thought it may help, what I need to know is, is my system recoverable so I can restore the X console. Or have I really messed it up.

If it is or not could you let me know how to fix it or should I re install from the begininig?

I get the feeling that some file is stopping my Xconsole from booting up or I need to simply configure something so it knows where to boot up from, but I have no idea and so have truned for some advice from you guys.

I really hope you can help cos I want to crack on with this Linux adventure and this is stopping me. I want to next see if i can get Counter-strike working and see if I can get my machine to be really stable etc etc.

Thankyou for reading this post, it's long I know but I am finding this stuff rather difficult and wanted to show you what I have done so far so you can get an idea to what level I am at.

Thank you, and any help you can give will be gratefully recieved,

All the best

Have you tried to reconfigure your X-settings?? Try this..

run:

X -configure

then try the new configuration file with :

X -xf86config XF86Config.new

If that workes better, overwrite the oldconfig with this configfile.

Regards

:)

try adding this in your ~/.xinitrc:

exec startkde/gnome-session etc or whatever you want

And for configuring X, run the program "xf86cfg" as root, it might be more simple than the consolebased one

I don't really think that there is any real problem, it's just that you're logging in with the "failsafe" session, instead if GNOME or KDE. Choose your preferred session in the "Sessions" menu in the login manager.

I have tried what you guys say, here are the results:

Dolda2000: Have already tried what you have kindly surjested but with setting the Session to any of the options iI get the same results. Thanks for the Advice though.

Kriss: 'try adding this in your ~/.xinitrc:' I'm not sure how to do this SORRY!! also exec startkde/gnome-session it cannot find this file do you know what directry it may be in? also xf86cfg seems to produce a nice program and most of the stuff seems to be correct for my configuration I cannot however find anyting with reference to the X gui? Can you help more?

andutt: Tried your stuff too X -configure prodcess a whole load of stuff but I have no idea what to do with it. Also X -xf86config XF86Config.new give me the report:

Fatal server error, server is already active for display 0, if server is no longer running remove /tmp/.XO-lock and start again?????

What does this mean, should i be trying to get the display to be 1

Thanks for you help so far lads, but I need more if it

SNIFFY

Hi again

Try to reboot your linux if you can, remove /tmp/.XO-lock if it still exists. Now try to start X on your new configfile.

That error i have got if X have crached somehow or if i have stopped X in a bad way :( . And it havent shutdown gracefully.

Regards

:lol:

But really, your X server works! Since you get xsm, an xterm and stuff, there's nothing wrong with your X server. Try this:
Switch to runlevel 3. To do that, go to a text terminal, log in as root, and run "telinit 3". Then, if you want KDE, run this:

Code:

---

X :0 & sleep 10; export DISPLAY=:0; startkde

---

Or if want GNOME, run this:

Code:

---

X :0 & sleep 10; export DISPLAY=:0; gnome-session

---

Btw., that wasn't .XO-lock before, but .X0-lock (ie. the digit, not the letter). The reason it was there was probably that you hadn't exited your running X server. That's what runlevel 3 is for.

Dolda2000: Ok this time I have had the best results, in the process of trying out all these things I seemed to have lost the shell prompt on startup into my basic X server. However after reading your post, I tried your new advice but first I had to enter into the the text form by hitting Ctrl-Alt-F1

Then I tiped: telinit 3 at the root prompt

Then I tiped: X :0 & sleep 10; export DISPLAY=:0; startkde

Just as you asked. Fantastic it went into KDE after a bit of thinking, just as you stated.

I then decided to logoff and see if I could get it to boot into the KDE on its own. Well it went back to the old screen again :-(. I then tried to change the session so that it would start in KDE no luck there either. I can however type all the commands into the text prompt and get back to KDE on future boot ups.

So what do you think I am doing wrong now, however, I do think we are getting there.

Is there somewhere I can enter this line in a configuration file so that when in login as root or as another user that it goes to KDE or gnome just how it is ment too?? I'm sure you can help

Another question is how do you find stuff out like that line

X :0 & sleep 10; export DISPLAY=:0; startkde

or does that come with years of experience????

SNIFFY

As I thought, there's just something wrong with those session scripts of yours. Just what remains to be found out.
Could you try exchanging startkde in the line I gave you with "/etc/X11/xdm/Xsession kde >xs.log 2>&1" (without the quotes)? If your X server just stays gray for more than 15 seconds, press CTRL+ALT+Backspace to exit the X server, and please give me the contents of xs.log.
Just to repeat, the entire line should then be:

Code:

---

X :0 & sleep 10; export DISPLAY=:0; /etc/X11/xdm/Xsession kde >xs.log 2>&1

---

And to answer your other question, you could say that it comes from experience. It all makes sense if you know how the system works. "X :0 &" starts the X server without waiting for it to complete, "sleep 10;" sleeps 10 seconds to make sure that the X server gets time enough to initialize, "export DISPLAY=:0;" sets the environment variable DISPLAY to :0, to tell X programs what X server to connect to (I've written elsewhere about environment variables), and startkde is the actual KDE session program. It could be split into several lines, but I put it all on one line so that you wouldn't have to go back and forth between terminals when the X server claims your display.

Not sure if I have done it right? the log file xs.log seemed to be produce in my root directory but has nothing in it????

I'm beginning to think that I should return to XFree86 4.2.0

SNIFFY