Question

Redhat login screen - resolution changes with any keystroke

Asked by: k2eric

Hello,

I'm running Redhat 9.0 with the 2.4.20-19.9 kernel on a Toshiba Satellite. I just finished installing the latest X11R6.6 from x.org. Now, whenever I boot my machine and am presented with the GUI login, I can't enter my username. Whenever I hit a key, the screen resolution cycles between three settings. I have been able to successfully restart the server with Ctl-Alt-Backspace, but that didn't help. Otherwise, the screen looks fine and my mouse works with no problem. Any ideas? Thanks in advance..

Eric

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Asked On
2003-08-14 at 06:53:51ID20709572
Tags

change

,

keystroke

Topic

X-Windows Window Manager

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Answers

 

by: GnsPosted on 2003-08-14 at 08:52:54ID: 9147634

Sounds like there is a problem finding the kbd files.
Question: Why did you do this? Isn't trusty ol' xfree86 enough:-).

-- Glenn

 

by: k2ericPosted on 2003-08-14 at 09:06:47ID: 9147767

I upgraded because I needed the X11 library files for something that I was compiling. I didn't realize that downloading X11R6.6 would change the entire server! (need I say that I'm a newbie to X?)

The same problem occurs whether I use gdm or kdm, so I'm thinking that this is not a display manager problem specifically. I'm also unable to start up xfree86 from the command line. I get a cursor with a black screen. When I kill this, I can see lots of errors like "expected keysym, got XF86_Switch_VT_3: line 59 of pc/pc." XFree86.0.log seems to be without errors.

Can you suggest a way for me to begin troubleshooting?

Eric

 

by: GnsPosted on 2003-08-14 at 09:35:36ID: 9148040

Well, you see most (if not all) GNU/Linux distributions don't use the X11R6.6 source distribution from http://www.x.org but rather the free implementation from http://www.xfree86.org ... And most distros provide enough development libraries/confs/etc that you seldom/never need install X from source at all (unless that is the main distribution method of your distro).

To resolve your problem, I'd try and "undo" the changes made by the installation of X11R6.6 and "reinstall" your distributions standard X packages. This can be less than easy to do... run make -n install to see where/what has been installed from the sources.... And move/remove this. Then you need find (on the installation CDs) and reinstall all already installed packages... If you haven't done much, it might be easiest to reinstall RH9 completely.

-- Glenn

 

by: jleviePosted on 2003-08-14 at 10:08:36ID: 9148312

Basically you've pretty much hosed up your system w/respect to X. What I'd suggest that you try in an attempt to fix the problem is to force a re-install of the X packages that RedHat provided. Since your system has been updated (I assume you used up2date) the rpm packages that you'll need will have to come from a RedHat 9 errata collection, meaning that you'll need to FTP those files to the local machine.  I'd use a mirror, but the RedHat site would be ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/updates/9/en/os/

The trick here will be to identify what needs to be re-installed and how to clean up what the "out of band" X installation may have left behind. You can identify most of the X related packages by executing 'rpm -qa | grep -i "^x". I'd certainly re-install everything that begins with XFree and I'd also include Xaw3d in the list. Note that you'll need to use an 'rpm -i --force " with all packages named on that command line. When you've done that an rpm verify can be used to look for X related packaged that might have been missed.

You will need to re-configure X when your done (redhay-config-xfree86).

The libraries that you needed are almost certainly included with RedHat although they or their *-devel might not have been installed. You can add a library or its -devel package at any time, just be sure that you get the correct version. If you continue to keep the box up to date (and excellent idea) then you always want to check the errata collection first.

 

by: k2ericPosted on 2003-08-14 at 11:35:25ID: 9148996

Fun! I'll give this a shot. Thanks to both of you for your help on this..

Eric

 

by: GnsPosted on 2003-08-15 at 02:19:38ID: 9155463

I see a miss in my previous comment:
"reinstall all already installed packages" should have read "reinstall all x-related allready installed packages"
Jim is as always to the point.
I'd still say that it might be simplest to backup any data (sources or whatnot) and perform a clean install... at least save's a lot of time and nail-biting:-).

-- Glenn (a.k.a. Le Grand Typo)

 

by: sweetde23Posted on 2008-05-16 at 17:13:13ID: 21587462

I had the exact same problem - any keystroke toggles the screen resolution b/w 3 settings.  I booted recovery mode, and set autologin to get past the gdm graphical login.  Now when I 'startx', everything comes up fine - no errors.  But I still cannot type anything - it still changes resolutions.  Someone please tell me some ideas so I dont have to reinstall.

Running Ubuntu 6.06.  The last thing I installed was Java jre 1.6.0.05 for OOo media files. There seemed to be a couple different versions of java installed.  Then I installed JMF 2.1.1e.  Thats the most suspicious - it ran some setup scripts, then had me edit my .bashrc file to include the line:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:$JMFHOME/lib

I already took out that and all the related lines in .bashrc, but no good.

 

by: GnsPosted on 2008-05-17 at 07:21:40ID: 21589420

In your session logs, do you get a lot of keyboard-related errors? There-s been a lot of water under the bridges since this Q was answered... Might be a variation on the theme:-).

One way of avoiding having to reinstall everything, yet reinstalling everything (:-) would be to go to LTS 8.04... Which would basically replace most/any "damaged" installs. Worst case, you'll have your system upgraded to the latest while still retaining the same problem:-).

Cheers
-- Glenn

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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