lrsach01 Posted August 10, 2004 Report Share Posted August 10, 2004 OK...I'm having some trouble with X but I'm not ENTIRELY sure where the problem is. It all started when I got a new computer and decided to put Mandrake 10 on it. I'd been using 9.2 for a while with no problems at all. I've always had an easy time installing the latest version. Easy as pie...no problems (well the supermount thing a couple of years ago was a pain). Any how, my new system is a Dell Optiplex GX270 with a P4 3GHz, 1gig of ram, and a fine flat panel monitor (a Dell 1703FP Analog). One note that may be important: my video controller is on the motherboard...and Intel® 82865G Graphics Controller. Trouble started up from the day I tried installing Madrake 10 Power pack. It was a small thing, but I could not access the nice pretty graphic install. I had the old time "tab here, press enter there" installation (no gui, no mouse). No big deal. The typical install will work fine and then i can tweak it when I'm up and running. OK...install complete and I go for my first login. Nothing is there except a pretty light blue screen. I twiddle the mouse and see a white square. Some how my desk top is HUGE! So huge that my screen cannot show the whole thing. I can get around to everything by moving the mouse, but this is rediculous. I double check the settings recommended for my monitor (1280X1024 and 60 Hz). I go into the system settings wizard and set the both the monitor type and resolution. I'm prompted to restart X, so I do.....blank screen...10 seconds and I get a login prompt. OK...I login and type startx. I get the following error,"Screens found but none with usable configurations. No Screens found." Now what? I didn't mean to hurt my nice pretty new computer but I somehow have. :( Any help would be appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coverup Posted August 10, 2004 Report Share Posted August 10, 2004 From your description, there are two probs here. 1. During your first attemt, you had the desktop resolution much lower than the resolution of the display. I saw something like this when I was using 640x480 desktop on the 1400x1050 screen. You can change the resolution on the fly by pressing Ctrl+Alt+"+"/"-" (you know, those + and - on the right adge of the keyboard...). If you look at /etc/X11/XF86Config-4, somewhere at the end you'll find: Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen0" Device "Card0" Monitor "Monitor0" DefaultColorDepth 16 SubSection "Display" Depth 1 Modes "1400x1050" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" "1280x1024" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 4 Modes "1400x1050" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" "1280x1024" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 8 Modes "1400x1050" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" "1280x1024" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 15 Modes "1400x1050" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" "1280x1024" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 16 Modes "1400x1050" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" "1280x1024" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 24 Modes "1400x1050" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" "1280x1024" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 32 Modes "1400x1050" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" "1280x1024" EndSubSection EndSection Usually, the 1st mode is the default mode. You can manually edit the file to start X at a resolution you like. 2. "No screesn found" means that the videocard does not support any of the screens defined in the Screens section of XF86Config-4. Apparently, the original XF86Config-4 file was overwritten by Xdrake (or whatever it's called). My suggestion would be to boot into init 3 (console mode), and try to configure X again. When you're prompted to setup the graphic login, say "no" until you find the X configuration which you're happy with. To start with, accept the detected options, and see if you can start X. Then post the XF86Config-4 here, someone should be able to help. BACKUP that file before you start tweaking it. [no need to include whole of immediately preceding post! - spinynorman] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsw Posted August 10, 2004 Report Share Posted August 10, 2004 command from console is $ XFdrake. I think coverup is right. The graphics card is not set correctly. Just experienced this my self-- huge screen resolution and all. Once I got the card configured I was able to enjoy my new computer. You should be able to do the same. If your graphics chipset is not supported ( and it might not be if it is new-market ) you should be able to get by using the 'vesa' driver or perhaps the 'vga' driver in the x86 section of XFdrake. For me, my chipset was not supported (via km400) and the 'vesa' driver yeilded average performance. I ended up buying a used nvidia card for like 40 bucks and it works great. good luck tsw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lrsach01 Posted August 10, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 10, 2004 OK guys...THANKS! I'm almost there. I was able tp get myt gui back (just love that KDE). Now, I'm not sure what to do about the original problem. Just to describe it a little better: its like my desktop is 3 ft by 3 ft but my viewing area is only 6 in by 6 in. By moving the window around, I can see the whole desktop but this is hardle ideal. Here is the XF86Config-4 file: [SIZE=1]# File generated by XFdrake. # ********************************************************************** # Refer to the XF86Config man page for details about the format of # this file. # ********************************************************************** Section "Files" # Multiple FontPath entries are allowed (they are concatenated together) # By default, Mandrake 6.0 and later now use a font server independent of # the X server to render fonts. FontPath "unix/:-1" EndSection Section "ServerFlags" #DontZap # disable <Crtl><Alt><BS> (server abort) AllowMouseOpenFail # allows the server to start up even if the mouse doesn't work #DontZoom # disable <Crtl><Alt><KP_+>/<KP_-> (resolution switching) EndSection Section "Module" Load "dbe" # Double-Buffering Extension Load "v4l" # Video for Linux Load "extmod" Load "type1" Load "freetype" Load "glx" # 3D layer Load "dri" # direct rendering EndSection Section "DRI" Mode 0666 EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Keyboard1" Driver "Keyboard" Option "XkbModel" "pc105" Option "XkbLayout" "en_US" Option "XkbOptions" "" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Mouse1" Driver "mouse" Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2" Option "Device" "/dev/mouse" Option "ZAxisMapping" "6 7" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "monitor1" VendorName "Dell" ModelName "Dell 1703FP (Analog)" HorizSync 30.0-80.0 VertRefresh 56.0-76.0 # Sony Vaio C1(X,XS,VE,VN)? # 1024x480 @ 85.6 Hz, 48 kHz hsync ModeLine "1024x480" 65.00 1024 1032 1176 1344 480 488 494 563 -hsync -vsync # TV fullscreen mode or DVD fullscreen output. # 768x576 @ 79 Hz, 50 kHz hsync ModeLine "768x576" 50.00 768 832 846 1000 576 590 595 630 # 768x576 @ 100 Hz, 61.6 kHz hsync ModeLine "768x576" 63.07 768 800 960 1024 576 578 590 616 EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "device1" VendorName "Intel Corporation" BoardName "Intel 865" Driver "i810" Option "DPMS" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "screen1" Device "device1" Monitor "monitor1" DefaultColorDepth 16 Subsection "Display" Depth 8 Virtual 1024 768 EndSubsection Subsection "Display" Depth 15 Virtual 1024 768 EndSubsection Subsection "Display" Depth 16 Virtual 1024 768 EndSubsection Subsection "Display" Depth 24 Virtual 1024 768 EndSubsection EndSection Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "layout1" InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard" InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer" Screen "screen1" EndSection [SIZE=7][/SIZE][/SIZE] Now what? I've notice one thing about linux...its never the same problem twice. Its ALWAYS something new. I've learned a ton each time I upgrade. :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coverup Posted August 11, 2004 Report Share Posted August 11, 2004 (edited) You see, you have only one virtual screen 1024x768, and no high res screens. XF86Config-4 does not contain modeline definitions for your monitor, and you don't have any modes defined either. I don't know much about this, but could be the cause of your troubles. Instead of using XFdrake, try one of the XFree X configuration tools (XFree86 -configure, xf86config, xf86cfg). I would do this from the console. If you don't succeed, you may want to manually edit XF86Config-4 getting rid of virtual screens and replacing them with a list of display modes. There has been many posts around about that. You may also find ready-to-use XF86Config-4 files using i810 driver (google for XF86Config + i810) and tweak them to your like. Also, I've seen posts on this forum that refer to a website where you can enter details of your monitor (resolution, and frequency), and get the corresponding modeline to include in XF86Config-4. Another useful tool for tweaking screen resoultion and modelines is xvidtune. Be careful with it; at least, it can tell you what modeline is being used. If everything fails, your safe bet would be to get a Knoppix CD and use XF86Config-4 created by Knoppix.not [no need to include whole of immediately preceding post! - spinynorman] Edited August 11, 2004 by spinynorman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coverup Posted August 11, 2004 Report Share Posted August 11, 2004 (edited) A quick googling has brought these posts: http://lists.progeny.com/archive/progeny-d...5/msg00276.html http://lists.progeny.com/archive/progeny-d...5/msg00207.html Edited August 11, 2004 by coverup Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted August 11, 2004 Report Share Posted August 11, 2004 Yes. for the i810, put the actual resolutions in there and take out, or #comment out the virtual nonesense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coverup Posted August 11, 2004 Report Share Posted August 11, 2004 Yes. for the i810, put the actual resolutions in there and take out, or #comment out the virtual nonesense. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Hmm, it's not only i810... I have infamous ATI M9 inmy laptop, XFdrake defined virtual screens for it too. How do you actually make it do proper hardware probing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lrsach01 Posted August 11, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 11, 2004 More fun and games. I commented out the entire subsection "Display" from my XF86cinfig-4 file then dropped into command line. I tried all the suggested utilities (XFree86, xf86config, and xf86cfg). Each one of them resulted in the same errors I saw earlier (no screens available...no X server). So I went back and tried XFDrake. I got X back up, but with the same screen size problem. I guess I'm down to manually editing the file. Yes. for the i810, put the actual resolutions in there and take out, or #comment out the virtual nonesense. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> How do you notate the actual resolutions? Should I have commented out the entire Display subsections? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coverup Posted August 12, 2004 Report Share Posted August 12, 2004 The best way is to use Knoppix to do the autodetection for you. If it's not available, this procedure worked for me in the past. Use it at your own risk! 1. Go to http://xtiming.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/xtiming.pl and calculate a suitable modeline for your display. Be careful and choose only values suitable for your monitor, wrong modelines could fry the monitor - you've been warned! As an example, the modeline for resolution 1152x864 at refresh rate 85Hz will look like this Modeline "1152x864@85" 132.80 1152 1184 1688 1720 864 880 892 908 2. Add it to the Monitor section of XF86Config-4, just above the #Sony Vaio: # 1152x864 @ 85.03 Hz, 77.2 kHz hsync Modeline "1152x864" 132.80 1152 1184 1688 1720 864 880 892 908 The values 85.03Hz and 77.2 kHz are calculated values, also I changed "1152x864@85" to "1152x864" because that's how my modeline looks. Not sure, whether this is necessary. 3. Edit the Screen section. Remove (or better comment out with #) all subsections "Display" that contain virtual screens and replace them with this Subsection "Display" Depth 15 Modes "1152x864" EndSubsection Subsection "Display" Depth 16 Modes "1152x864" EndSubsection Subsection "Display" Depth 24 Modes "1152x864" EndSubsection 4. Save and start X. If it works, you can add more modelines and append them to the line Modes. You will be able to switch between them by pressing <Ctrl>+<Alt>+<+>/<->. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lrsach01 Posted August 13, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 13, 2004 Coverup, tsw, bvc, you guys are the best. I followed every tip, trick, hint, explanation, and even man page (when in doubt). Thanks for all the help. Unfortunately, nothing has worked. If this were my home computer, I would have stuck with trying everything to get the system to work. However, this is my work computer and I have an expense accout (even if its small). So...I got my self a nice nVidia GeForce 5200 card with 256 Mb of ram. :) Worked first time right out of the box. It even installed easier on my Linux partition than on my Win partition. I still wish I could have gotten the Intel controller to work. I did learn alot about the system though and dropped alot of my "command line/ file editing" fear. Thanks for the help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coverup Posted August 13, 2004 Report Share Posted August 13, 2004 Good to know that you fixed the problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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