Could you post the whole content of /var/log/Xorg.0 and /etc/X11/xorg.conf?
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Browse All TopicsHi, Im having a problem getting X-Windows to start. I installed OpenSuse 10.3 on an HP Visualize (P-Class) system. The installation went fine but when it boots up the system completely locks up when it tries to start X Windows (just before the login screen). I can boot into failsafe mode and login to a shell, and run the YAST configuration tool. From YAST I can configure the display, and X Windows starts up just fine (only when configuring the display from YAST), it configures the Display, and successfully test that display then allows me to save the changes. Even after all this if I run startx or reboot and try to login, the system completely locks up.
I looked in the messages file in /var/log/ and the only error I see says: "ERROR (run:85) Cannot access acpi/apm event file"
To see if my problem is caused by the acpi process I disabled it, but it made no difference. I also replaced the graphics card and the mouse and it still made no difference. The graphics card is an ATI Rage 128 Pro. Im not sure what else to try, someone suggested changing the graphics driver in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file but I dont know what to change it to.
Any help here would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
dv
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Thanks for your response. I renamed xorg.conf as instructed and started Xorg, Im not sure what Im supposed to see here, I got a blank screen with an X cursor that moves (it did not lock up my system). Im not sure if its working or not. I was able to kill this process with Ctrl-Alt-Backspace.
I than ran YaST and was able to configure the display, I just selected the defaults. However, when I ran startx again, the system still locked up, no change. I did not reset xorg.conf before I ran YaST but I noticed that it generated a new xorg.conf file.
Thanks again for your help,
dv
OK, I put xorg.conf.new in the right place, "display manager" is started with startx right? I did get a little further with this, it now starts X windows and gets all the way to the loading of the desktop but then it locks up again. The same thing happened when I ran startx from failsafe mode as root. All I can do is hit the reset button!
Sounds like a non xorg.conf configuration problem. Some application is doing something really bad which makes the X server freeze. xdm, kdm, gdm are display managers, they manage your graphical login process, then they start a DE.. aka startx, but startx should be fine to debug as it basically just skips the grapical login.
So does the mouse move around and can you click things until it freezes? If its freezing so late into the boot process that you can actually see desktop icons and such then its probably something in your Autostart.
My experiences with OpenSuSE have been kinda rough honestly, if you aren't super attached to it, give Ubuntu a try. It seems to be much more reliable.
If not we'll keep debugging this with you.
No, Ctrl-Alt-F1 does not free up the system. The system seems to be completly locked up, even the network connections are locked so I can't get to the system remotely.
I was actually able to get a little further when I booted up this time, I was able to login (using GNOME) and navigate around the UI. However when I was poking around in the YaST control center it locked up on me again, I wasn't doing anything but moving the mouse when it happened.
I have played around with Ubuntu a little (I installed it on a system I gave to a friend), however I aleady have a stable openSuse system and I would like these two servers to have the same OS, if possible. Althought, Installing Ubuntu is not completely out of the questions.
I'm thinking that this must be some kind of hardware incompatability issue, I seem to remember having a similar problem with X Windows on this system a couple years ago running Fedora Core 4 or 5.
Add Option "NoAccel" to your display adapter definition in /etc/X11/xorg.conf right after Driver "ati"
Does it work now?
As I see from logs there is some problem preventing r128 DRI driver from loading into kernel.
Please post small parts of dmesg dealing with AGP,DRI,ATI (dmesg | egrep -i 'AGP|DRI|ATI')
Did you install using THIS videocard or just swapped?
I updated the xorg.conf file and see no difference, it locked up again after I navigated around the UI for a couple min.
I've included the result from dmesg | egrep -i 'AGP|DRI|ATI', but I didn't see much there.
The graphics card I'm using was put in after in the installation. The origional card was an Elsa Synergy II, it was giving me the same problems as the current card.
Thanks,
dv
dmesg shows your motherboards chipset is not supported (lines 27 and 28) in your (or any other) Linux kernel, so no 3D.
Try Option "ForcePCIMode", if it crashes even then, use Option "NoAccel" - if it then crashes - I am out of ideas.
Please post some more info - tail of dmesg after 'modprobe r128' and output of 'lsmod|grep drm', i think no hope for full 3D
This would explain why I also had problems with Fedora.
No luck with these other changes, I added Option "ForcePCIMode" by itself then with Option "NoAccel" and it still locks up after I navigate through the UI for a while.
The dmesg text does not contain anything about 'modprobe r128' and 'lsmod|grep drm' retrurns nothing, but 'lsmod|grep agp' did return a couple lines (see below).
Is there any chance I could have the server run in non-graphical mode but just access it with VNC?
Thanks for all your help with this!
dv
Your video card hangs. Run modprobe r128 and after that run lsmod | grep drm and examine end of dmesg ouput related to module load. If it clearly says you succesfully loaded r128 drm module then run Xorg like display manager to see if it helps.
Please post output of lspci | grep 1:0:0 to let me see your videocard model.
OK I ran "modprobe r128" and it seemd to load (see below), then I ran startx. The result was that it still locked up, this time it locked up while it was loading just after the help window was displayed. I did notice that there was a bouncing green ball (busy cursor) next to the mouse pointer while it was loading, which was moving up until the time it locked up, this is something I have not seen before.
You can enable that somewhere in YaST.
Why VNC? X11 forwarding of SSH is enabled by default. Just use it. (On Windows install Xming and make X11 forwarding is enabled in your SSH client)
For r128 - next try - add r128 to /etc/modprobe.preload so that it loads for sure at boot.
Now try starting X without my parameters, then with ForcePCIMode, if still no luck with NoAccel too.
I don't see a /etc/modprobe.preload file on this system, so I put "modprobe r128" in the /etc/init.d/boot.local file, and this seemed to load this module OK. I restarted X without the parameters set then set ForcePCIMode then NoAccel but I got no change. For a moment I thought we had it, it actually worked for a few minutes before it locked up again.
Why VNC? Because I've used it before and I didn't realize that I could forward the entire GUI. I've displayed specific applications to my windows system before using Exceed. I'll have to spend some time playing with that, sounds like a good idea! I was able to get VNC to work on this system, so I can use that for now if needed.
I was not familar with zypper, thanks for the tip. I have used yum before on my Fedora system so it's good to have a tool like that for Suse.
If you have any more ideas I would love to hear them, otherwise I'm content to blame this problem on incompatable hardware, and run this system remotly from the back room. You have been a great help!
Thanks,
dv
I don't think this is an overheating problem, this system has five fans in it and airflow is good. When I was running Fedora on this system I had it running for months at a time without being shutdown (running X11). Even recently I had it running openSuse for several days (without X11), having no problems.
Thanks,
dv
Exact driver/x11/kernel versions should complement your r128 driver bug report to vendor (x.org or opensuse or novell)
Try if Knoppix or Ubuntu does crash or not.
It is hardware problem that can be worked around by driver programmers. I have no YaST at hand, but it can change system's login environment to command line and never start Xorg.
To earn A grade let me correct my mistakes.
In SuSE you have to load modules using modprobe.conf file, luckily it contains manuals. Way I recommended suits RedHat Fedora or Mandriva.
Personally I do not use OpenSuSE for simple applications because its "minimal" installation loads heap of unmaintainable software. e.g adding ssh installs half of GNOME desktop which is not required for sshd. I prefer Mandriva Free here.
Indeed I do use SuSE where expensive software runs - redhat uses such a cut-down hernel that one has to install disk drivers from floppies for every hard disk controller newer than a year.
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by: vanfleetPosted on 2008-01-09 at 14:24:17ID: 20623127
One other comment, I looked in the Xorg.0.log file in /var/log and also found the following error:
(EE) R128(0): No DFP detected