No Screens Found

[JoeMama]

I'm new to Linux. I just installed Mandriva 2007 on my computer. When I try to load startx it tells me "no screens found."

Here's the log:

(EE) Failed to load module "vga" (module does not exist, 0)
(EE) No drivers available.

Fatal server error:
no screens found
XIO: fatal IO error 104 (connection reset by peer) on X server ":0.0" after 0 requests (0 known processed) with 0 events remaining.

I don't know what I can do.
Can someone please help??

[KenJackson]

In file /etc/X11/xorg.conf, there is a section like this:

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier "layout1"
    InputDevice ...
    InputDevice ...
    Screen   "screen1"
EndSection

That causes X to look for a section like this:

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "screen1"
    ...
EndSection

You probably don't have a screen section with an identifier that matches the one in the serverlayout section.

It may work to simply edit that file to make the identifiers match.


EDIT:
Also, look for Load "vga", maybe in the "Module" section and try commenting it out.

[JoeMama]

In file /etc/X11/xorg.conf, there is a section like this:

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier "layout1"
    InputDevice ...
    InputDevice ...
    Screen   "screen1"
EndSection

That causes X to look for a section like this:

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "screen1"
    ...
EndSection

You probably don't have a screen section with an identifier that matches the one in the serverlayout section.

It may work to simply edit that file to make the identifiers match.


EDIT:
Also, look for Load "vga", maybe in the "Module" section and try commenting it out.

Don't want to seem stupid, but how do you edit that file? I'm pretty new at using Linux.

[KenJackson]

Do you mean, the system won't let you, or you don't know which editor?

If the system won't let you, you need to be the super user. That is, if you are not logged in as root, run su and enter the password for root.

As for which editor, my personal favorite is emacs, but it takes a little effort to learn. Some would argue vi is the most standard editor. At least it seems to be the most widely available.

Also, I see joe is available in Mandriva. If you don't already know how to use emacs or vi, joe might be your best bet because it emulates the old WordStar key sequences, which were also used by Borland and others. You must run it as jstar to do that. You can also make it emulate pico if run a jpico.

So if, for example, you are going to use vi, enter the command as root:

vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf

[JoeMama]

I got it fixed, thanks. I had to reinstall it.