9.04 xorg badly broken

[Kevin O'Gorman]

I have two systems that I upgraded to 9.04, and the x system is
completely broken on one, and unsatisfactory on the other.

Here's the scoop on the broken one.  Bottom line, X never really
starts, but it apparently does not know this, because I'm just faced
with a black screen and an unresponsive system.  Since the install
never finished (I couldn't use the live disk, and the alternative ISO
only allows fresh installs), I don't have tools to log into the system
over the network.  There's probably a way to do that from the command
line, but I don't know how.

Details:

I'm using Ubuntu and Gentoo Linux, a 3dfx Voodoo 3 board and a
Westinghouse LCD monitor model LCM-20v5 through a KVM switch (the
Ubuntu and Gentoo are two different hosts).

I had a working configuration with xorg on both, they have both been
broken by recent upgrades to xorg.  I can no longer get X to boot up
to a working GUI.

For the moment, I'll focus on the Ubuntu situation

I have tried the output of Xorg --configure
(http://pastebin.ca/1483889)    (log file http://pastebin.ca/1483907)
I have tried the old xorg.conf  (http://pastebin.ca/1483892) (log file
http://pastebin.ca/1483900)
I have tried and empty xorg.conf. (log file http://pastebin.ca/1483925)

The results are the same with all  three: the Ubuntu bootup screen is
normal (Graphical: Ubuntu logo, large name in an outline font, and a
"cylon" progress bar with a bright segment moving back and forth)
later followed by a brief moment with the usual Ubuntu "busy" cursor,
then a black screen with occasional flickers of slightly gray).
Useless, but I think I'd be satisfied with the mode that showed the
cursor -- it was about as small as I remember for a 1280x1024 mode.

The hardware is working to this extent: Dual-booting to windows 98 I
get 7 different video modes from 640x480 all the way up to 1280x1024.
Moreover, the Ubuntu live disk can at least find a 600x800 mode,
although this is not enough to properly show and execute the upgrade path.

I suspect there's something about the newer X and the monitor itself,
rather than the video driver, because the Gentoo system also broke on
upgrade, and it uses an ATI Rage chipset on the motherboard.  The
results there are about the same.

How can I work to solve this?


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[Karl F. Larsen]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Kevin O'Gorman wrote:

> I have two systems that I upgraded to 9.04, and the x system is
> completely broken on one, and unsatisfactory on the other.
>
> Here's the scoop on the broken one.  Bottom line, X never really
> starts, but it apparently does not know this, because I'm just faced
> with a black screen and an unresponsive system.  Since the install
> never finished (I couldn't use the live disk, and the alternative ISO
> only allows fresh installs), I don't have tools to log into the system
> over the network.  There's probably a way to do that from the command
> line, but I don't know how.
>
> Details:
>
> I'm using Ubuntu and Gentoo Linux, a 3dfx Voodoo 3 board and a
> Westinghouse LCD monitor model LCM-20v5 through a KVM switch (the
> Ubuntu and Gentoo are two different hosts).
>
> I had a working configuration with xorg on both, they have both been
> broken by recent upgrades to xorg.  I can no longer get X to boot up
> to a working GUI.
>
> For the moment, I'll focus on the Ubuntu situation
>
> I have tried the output of Xorg --configure
> (http://pastebin.ca/1483889)    (log file http://pastebin.ca/1483907)
> I have tried the old xorg.conf  (http://pastebin.ca/1483892) (log file
> http://pastebin.ca/1483900)
> I have tried and empty xorg.conf. (log file http://pastebin.ca/1483925)
>
> The results are the same with all  three: the Ubuntu bootup screen is
> normal (Graphical: Ubuntu logo, large name in an outline font, and a
> "cylon" progress bar with a bright segment moving back and forth)
> later followed by a brief moment with the usual Ubuntu "busy" cursor,
> then a black screen with occasional flickers of slightly gray).
> Useless, but I think I'd be satisfied with the mode that showed the
> cursor -- it was about as small as I remember for a 1280x1024 mode.
>
> The hardware is working to this extent: Dual-booting to windows 98 I
> get 7 different video modes from 640x480 all the way up to 1280x1024.
> Moreover, the Ubuntu live disk can at least find a 600x800 mode,
> although this is not enough to properly show and execute the upgrade path.
>
> I suspect there's something about the newer X and the monitor itself,
> rather than the video driver, because the Gentoo system also broke on
> upgrade, and it uses an ATI Rage chipset on the motherboard.  The
> results there are about the same.
>
> How can I work to solve this?
>
>

        9.04 does not have a functional xorg so that might be your problem But
I think the main problem is upgrading. I have 9.04 on my laptop and this
computer. They were both loaded from the Beta LiveCD and I had very
little trouble.

73 Karl


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        Linux User
        #450462   http://counter.li.org.
        Key ID = 3951B48D

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[NoOp-4]

On 07/04/2009 09:45 AM, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
> I have two systems that I upgraded to 9.04, and the x system is
> completely broken on one, and unsatisfactory on the other.

What did you upgrade from? Hopefully Intrepid. This shows from 8.04:
http://pastebin.ca/1483892 did you try to upgrade directly from 8.04 to
9.04? If so you will indeed have issues - see:
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/upgrading
  https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes

If that's the case, then download a copy of the 9.04 liveCD & I'll see
if I can help you recover.

>
> Here's the scoop on the broken one.  Bottom line, X never really
> starts, but it apparently does not know this, because I'm just faced
> with a black screen and an unresponsive system.  Since the install
> never finished (I couldn't use the live disk, and the alternative ISO
> only allows fresh installs), I don't have tools to log into the system
> over the network.

Alternate CD will indeed allow you to fix an install. It can get a bit
complicated, but you can install/reinstall with the alternate cd.
However, you state that the install never finished; is that 'upgrade'
never finished, or 'install' never finished?

 There's probably a way to do that from the command

> line, but I don't know how.
>
> Details:
>
> I'm using Ubuntu and Gentoo Linux, a 3dfx Voodoo 3 board and a
> Westinghouse LCD monitor model LCM-20v5 through a KVM switch (the
> Ubuntu and Gentoo are two different hosts).
>
> I had a working configuration with xorg on both, they have both been
> broken by recent upgrades to xorg.  I can no longer get X to boot up
> to a working GUI.
>
> For the moment, I'll focus on the Ubuntu situation
>
> I have tried the output of Xorg --configure
> (http://pastebin.ca/1483889)    (log file http://pastebin.ca/1483907)
> I have tried the old xorg.conf  (http://pastebin.ca/1483892) (log file
> http://pastebin.ca/1483900)
> I have tried and empty xorg.conf. (log file http://pastebin.ca/1483925)
>
> The results are the same with all  three: the Ubuntu bootup screen is
> normal (Graphical: Ubuntu logo, large name in an outline font, and a
> "cylon" progress bar with a bright segment moving back and forth)
> later followed by a brief moment with the usual Ubuntu "busy" cursor,
> then a black screen with occasional flickers of slightly gray).
> Useless, but I think I'd be satisfied with the mode that showed the
> cursor -- it was about as small as I remember for a 1280x1024 mode.

Boot to recovery mode, select dpkg and repair any broken packages. Once
finished, run xfix. Then resume.

Also:
Something doesn't appear correct in your xorg.conf:
#
Section "Screen"
#
        Identifier "Screen0"
#
        Device     "Card0"
#
        Monitor    "Monitor0"
#
        SubSection "Display"
#
                Viewport   0 0
#
                Depth     1
#
        EndSubSection
#
        SubSection "Display"
#
                Viewport   0 0
#
                Depth     4
#
        EndSubSection
#
        SubSection "Display"
#
                Viewport   0 0
#
                Depth     8
#
        EndSubSection
#
        SubSection "Display"
#
                Viewport   0 0
#
                Depth     15
#
        EndSubSection
#
        SubSection "Display"
#
                Viewport   0 0
#
                Depth     16
#
        EndSubSection
#
        SubSection "Display"
#
                Viewport   0 0
#
                Depth     24
#
        EndSubSection

That section should contain something along the lines of:
Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "TwinView" "0"
    Option         "metamodes" "1280x1024 +0+0"
    Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "true"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection

For a hard configured screen. Note: that's for mine, so yours will be
different. Or:

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Default Screen"
    Device         "Configured video device"
    Monitor        "Configured monitor"
EndSection

for a default xorg.conf on 9.04.

What happens if you boot into recovery mode and run xfix?




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[Kevin O'Gorman]

Synopsis:
This helped to the extent that I have more up-to-date packages,
although some indexes are still not loaded.
I could not follow all of the suggestions ("xfix" does not exist).
The screen is still black.

On Sun, Jul 5, 2009 at 12:44 PM, NoOp<glgxg@...> wrote:

> On 07/04/2009 09:45 AM, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
>> I have two systems that I upgraded to 9.04, and the x system is
>> completely broken on one, and unsatisfactory on the other.
>
> What did you upgrade from? Hopefully Intrepid. This shows from 8.04:
> http://pastebin.ca/1483892 did you try to upgrade directly from 8.04 to
> 9.04? If so you will indeed have issues - see:
> http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/upgrading
>  https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes
>
> If that's the case, then download a copy of the 9.04 liveCD & I'll see
> if I can help you recover.

That xorg.conf shows 8.04 because that's the starting point.  I tried
upgrading 8.04 -> 8.10 -> 9.04 and it failed miserably because the
9.04 live CD could not get a video mode high enough resolution to be
usable -- limit was 600x800.  Thus I used the alternative install CD
and did a fresh install to a new partition.  The resulting X was
useless, so I imported the xorg.conf from the original root partition,
which was also pretty useless.

>
>>
>> Here's the scoop on the broken one.  Bottom line, X never really
>> starts, but it apparently does not know this, because I'm just faced
>> with a black screen and an unresponsive system.  Since the install
>> never finished (I couldn't use the live disk, and the alternative ISO
>> only allows fresh installs), I don't have tools to log into the system
>> over the network.
>
> Alternate CD will indeed allow you to fix an install. It can get a bit
> complicated, but you can install/reinstall with the alternate cd.
> However, you state that the install never finished; is that 'upgrade'
> never finished, or 'install' never finished?
>

Neither one, really.  The 8.10 -> 9.04 never really started because of
video problems.  Install resulted in broken X, so it doesn't count as
finished either, and as a result it doesn't have the right package
sources yet and is quite limited in software.

>  There's probably a way to do that from the command
>> line, but I don't know how.
>>
>> Details: [ snipped ]
>
> Boot to recovery mode, select dpkg and repair any broken packages. Once
> finished, run xfix. Then resume.

Oh.  I see dpkg is fixing the package sources.  It's upgrading 151 packages.
Not all indexes could be loaded -- it failed to resolve the names
us.archive.ubuntu.com and security.ubuntu.com; I don't know what this
makes me miss.

There does not appear to be anything named 'xfix' on the rescue menu,
nor a man page by that name, nor does synaptic on my 9.04 at work know
about xfix.  There are some xfixes* libraries, but no hint about how
or when they are used.

Resuming gives me the black screen I was getting before.  I have to
reset now (ctl-alt-delete doesn't even work).  I'll try the xorg.conf
tweaks mentioned below...

>
> Also:
> Something doesn't appear correct in your xorg.conf:
> #
> Section "Screen"
> #
>        Identifier "Screen0"
> #
>        Device     "Card0"
> #
>        Monitor    "Monitor0"
> #
>        SubSection "Display"
> #
>                Viewport   0 0
> #
>                Depth     1
> #
>        EndSubSection
> #
>        SubSection "Display"
> #
>                Viewport   0 0
> #
>                Depth     4
> #
>        EndSubSection
> #
>        SubSection "Display"
> #
>                Viewport   0 0
> #
>                Depth     8
> #
>        EndSubSection
> #
>        SubSection "Display"
> #
>                Viewport   0 0
> #
>                Depth     15
> #
>        EndSubSection
> #
>        SubSection "Display"
> #
>                Viewport   0 0
> #
>                Depth     16
> #
>        EndSubSection
> #
>        SubSection "Display"
> #
>                Viewport   0 0
> #
>                Depth     24
> #
>        EndSubSection
>
> That section should contain something along the lines of:
> Section "Screen"
>    Identifier     "Screen0"
>    Device         "Device0"
>    Monitor        "Monitor0"
>    DefaultDepth    24
>    Option         "TwinView" "0"
>    Option         "metamodes" "1280x1024 +0+0"
>    Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "true"
>    SubSection     "Display"
>        Depth       24
>    EndSubSection
>
> For a hard configured screen. Note: that's for mine, so yours will be
> different. Or:
>
> Section "Screen"
>    Identifier     "Default Screen"
>    Device         "Configured video device"
>    Monitor        "Configured monitor"
> EndSection
>
> for a default xorg.conf on 9.04.

The default xorg seems to be an empty xorg.conf.  I'm using the one
that I got from "Xorg -configure" and I'm not sure what you'd want to
change.

>
> What happens if you boot into recovery mode and run xfix?

No can do.  No such animal, as mentioned above.


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[NoOp-4]

On 07/06/2009 10:18 AM, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:

> Synopsis:
> This helped to the extent that I have more up-to-date packages,
> although some indexes are still not loaded.
> I could not follow all of the suggestions ("xfix" does not exist).
> The screen is still black.
>
> On Sun, Jul 5, 2009 at 12:44 PM, NoOp<glgxg@...> wrote:
>> On 07/04/2009 09:45 AM, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
>>> I have two systems that I upgraded to 9.04, and the x system is
>>> completely broken on one, and unsatisfactory on the other.
>>
>> What did you upgrade from? Hopefully Intrepid. This shows from 8.04:
>> http://pastebin.ca/1483892 did you try to upgrade directly from 8.04 to
>> 9.04? If so you will indeed have issues - see:
>> http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/upgrading
>>  https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes
>>
>> If that's the case, then download a copy of the 9.04 liveCD & I'll see
>> if I can help you recover.
>
> That xorg.conf shows 8.04 because that's the starting point.  I tried
> upgrading 8.04 -> 8.10 -> 9.04 and it failed miserably because the
> 9.04 live CD could not get a video mode high enough resolution to be
> usable -- limit was 600x800.

Easiest way to change this is to right click on the bottom panel (it's
usually the top panel that is off screen) and 'Add to panel'| Main Menu.
From there you can try System|Preferences|Screen Resolution.

 Thus I used the alternative install CD
> and did a fresh install to a new partition.  The resulting X was
> useless, so I imported the xorg.conf from the original root partition,
> which was also pretty useless.

Thanks that explains it.

....
>>
>> Boot to recovery mode, select dpkg and repair any broken packages. Once
>> finished, run xfix. Then resume.
>
> Oh.  I see dpkg is fixing the package sources.  It's upgrading 151 packages.
> Not all indexes could be loaded -- it failed to resolve the names
> us.archive.ubuntu.com and security.ubuntu.com; I don't know what this
> makes me miss.

Quite a bit actually. Try again & if it still fails to resove those,
then check/modify the sources.list (/etc/apt/sources.list). You can do
that via nano:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Make sure that they use:
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/
instead of http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/

Sample:
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty main restricted universe
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty restricted main
multiverse universe #Added by software-properties
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty-updates main restricted
universe
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty-updates restricted main
multiverse universe #Added by software-properties
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty-security main restricted
universe
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty-security restricted
main multiverse universe #Added by software-properties

>
> There does not appear to be anything named 'xfix' on the rescue menu,
> nor a man page by that name, nor does synaptic on my 9.04 at work know
> about xfix.  There are some xfixes* libraries, but no hint about how
> or when they are used.

Sure there is... Again, boot using 'recovery' (from the grub menu select
the '(recovery mode)' kernel opton); use the down arrow on your keyboard
to scroll down on the recovery mode screen.

To run from a terminal:
$ /usr/share/recovery-mode/options/xfix
....


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[Leonard Chatagnier-2]

BIG SNIP.
> > What happens if you boot into recovery mode and run
> xfix?
>
> No can do.  No such animal, as mentioned above.
>
Are you sure you are accessing recovery mode(single user) correctly? On a boot/reboot, you have to press escape before grub starts and select the recovery mode kernel entry from the list of available kernels to boot. It's the second entry for each installed kernel. let the system boot in recovery mode and you should eventually see a gui listing of 4 entries, the last of which is xfix. Select the xfix entry and continue booting.
I'm not totally sure if Jaunty has xfix in recovery mode as I haven't used it but can't think of a reason why it would not be.
Let the list know if you followed the above general sequence or not.  
>
Leonard Chatagnier
lenc5570@...

> --
> Kevin O'Gorman, PhD
>


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[Kevin O'Gorman]

On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 2:06 PM, Leonard
Chatagnier<lenc5570@...> wrote:
>
> BIG SNIP.
>> > What happens if you boot into recovery mode and run
>> xfix?
>>
>> No can do.  No such animal, as mentioned above.
>>
> Are you sure you are accessing recovery mode(single user) correctly? On a boot/reboot, you have to press escape before grub starts and select the recovery mode kernel entry from the list of available kernels to boot. It's the second entry for each installed kernel. let the system boot in recovery mode and you should eventually see a gui listing of 4 entries, the last of which is xfix. Select the xfix entry and continue booting.

It's a bit different for me.  Pressing escape before grub starts does
nothing, maybe because there's no boot manager before grub.  I have it
on the MBR, and it's first in line.  But yes, I start the second
kernel, and it is recovery mode.  But the menu I get does not match
this description.  Instead I get a character-mode menu UI (looks sort
of graphical, but does not respond
to a mouse, just arrow keys), with 6 options:
  1 resume   Resume normal boot
  2 clean      Try to make free space
  3 dpkg       Repair broken packages
  4 fsck        File system check
  5 grub       Update grub bootloader
  6 netroot    Drop to root shell prompt with networking

No xfix.

++ kevin

> I'm not totally sure if Jaunty has xfix in recovery mode as I haven't used it but can't think of a reason why it would not be.
> Let the list know if you followed the above general sequence or not.
>>
> Leonard Chatagnier
> lenc5570@...
>
>> --
>> Kevin O'Gorman, PhD
>>
>
>
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>

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[Kevin O'Gorman]

Synopsis: packages are now up to date.

On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 1:14 PM, NoOp<glgxg@...> wrote:

> On 07/06/2009 10:18 AM, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
>> Synopsis:
>> This helped to the extent that I have more up-to-date packages,
>> although some indexes are still not loaded.
>> I could not follow all of the suggestions ("xfix" does not exist).
>> The screen is still black.
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 5, 2009 at 12:44 PM, NoOp<glgxg@...> wrote:
>>> On 07/04/2009 09:45 AM, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
>>>> I have two systems that I upgraded to 9.04, and the x system is
>>>> completely broken on one, and unsatisfactory on the other.
>>>
>  [ BIG SNIP]

>
> ....
>>>
>>> Boot to recovery mode, select dpkg and repair any broken packages. Once
>>> finished, run xfix. Then resume.
>>
>> Oh.  I see dpkg is fixing the package sources.  It's upgrading 151 packages.
>> Not all indexes could be loaded -- it failed to resolve the names
>> us.archive.ubuntu.com and security.ubuntu.com; I don't know what this
>> makes me miss.
>
> Quite a bit actually. Try again & if it still fails to resove those,
> then check/modify the sources.list (/etc/apt/sources.list). You can do
> that via nano:
>

Didn't need to do all that.  Retrying got dpkg to run clean and access
all sources and indexes.  Still no xfix.  I was able to install
openssh-server and can log in with X forwarding from my laptop and run
things like synaptic, so things are going better.

But there's still no X.

++ kevin

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[NoOp-4]

On 07/06/2009 03:37 PM, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
> Synopsis: packages are now up to date.
....
>
> Didn't need to do all that.  Retrying got dpkg to run clean and access
> all sources and indexes.  

Excellent!
> Still no xfix.

See below - but probably not necessary since you can ssh -X into the
machine now. Instead from a terminal:

$ sudo /usr/share/recovery-mode/options/xfix

I was able to install
> openssh-server and can log in with X forwarding from my laptop and run
> things like synaptic, so things are going better.
>
> But there's still no X.

Synaptic does come up? If so, then X is working, gdm probably isn't (or
is crashing). Do you get any login screen now?

You might try:

$ sudo apt-get install --reinstall gdm

>
> ++ kevin
>

Trying to keep this all in one thread (Leonard...):

You posted:

> It's a bit different for me.  Pressing escape before grub starts does
> nothing, maybe because there's no boot manager before grub.  I have it
> on the MBR, and it's first in line.  But yes, I start the second
> kernel, and it is recovery mode.  But the menu I get does not match
> this description.  Instead I get a character-mode menu UI (looks sort
> of graphical, but does not respond
> to a mouse, just arrow keys), with 6 options:
>   1 resume   Resume normal boot
>   2 clean      Try to make free space
>   3 dpkg       Repair broken packages
>   4 fsck        File system check
>   5 grub       Update grub bootloader
>   6 netroot    Drop to root shell prompt with networking
>
> No xfix.

Use the *down arrow* key. You should then see:

   resume   Resume normal boot
   clean      Try to make free space
   dpkg       Repair broken packages
   fsck        File system check
   grub       Update grub bootloader
   netroot    Drop to root shell prompt with networking
   root      Drop to a root shell prompt
   xfix       Try to auto repair graphic problems






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[Kevin O'Gorman]

Synopsis: I now know more about my system but the X server status has
not changed.

On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 4:13 PM, NoOp<glgxg@...> wrote:

> On 07/06/2009 03:37 PM, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
>> Synopsis: packages are now up to date.
> ....
>>
>> Didn't need to do all that.  Retrying got dpkg to run clean and access
>> all sources and indexes.
>
> Excellent!
>> Still no xfix.
>
> See below - but probably not necessary since you can ssh -X into the
> machine now. Instead from a terminal:
>
> $ sudo /usr/share/recovery-mode/options/xfix

Okay, that made a new xorg.conf, and saved the old one as
xorg.conf.10090706162221
It behaves the same as the old one -- black screen.  I can also report
that even after a remote terminal has done "/etc/init.d/gdm stop" and
it reports stoppage, that Ctl-Alt-fkeys fail to work and I cannot get
a local login.

The new xorg.conf is like the default one and is almost empty.
Useless in this case.

>
> I was able to install
>> openssh-server and can log in with X forwarding from my laptop and run
>> things like synaptic, so things are going better.
>>
>> But there's still no X.
>
> Synaptic does come up? If so, then X is working, gdm probably isn't (or
> is crashing). Do you get any login screen now?

You misunderstand.  I can now run synaptic with X forwarding from
another computer that has a working X server.  X clients work, but not
on the local X server.

>
> You might try:
>
> $ sudo apt-get install --reinstall gdm
>
>>
>> ++ kevin
>>
>
> Trying to keep this all in one thread (Leonard...):
>
> You posted:
>> It's a bit different for me.  Pressing escape before grub starts does
>> nothing, maybe because there's no boot manager before grub.  I have it
>> on the MBR, and it's first in line.  But yes, I start the second
>> kernel, and it is recovery mode.  But the menu I get does not match
>> this description.  Instead I get a character-mode menu UI (looks sort
>> of graphical, but does not respond
>> to a mouse, just arrow keys), with 6 options:
>>   1 resume   Resume normal boot
>>   2 clean      Try to make free space
>>   3 dpkg       Repair broken packages
>>   4 fsck        File system check
>>   5 grub       Update grub bootloader
>>   6 netroot    Drop to root shell prompt with networking
>>
>> No xfix.
>
> Use the *down arrow* key. You should then see:
>
>   resume   Resume normal boot
>   clean      Try to make free space
>   dpkg       Repair broken packages
>   fsck        File system check
>   grub       Update grub bootloader
>   netroot    Drop to root shell prompt with networking
>   root       Drop to a root shell prompt
>   xfix       Try to auto repair graphic problems
>

Silly me.  It was there all along; I'm just out of the habit of
working with character-mode UI and didn't really notice the scroll
bar.
Still, I got there another way.

--
Kevin O'Gorman, PhD

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[NoOp-4]

On 07/06/2009 04:33 PM, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:

> Synopsis: I now know more about my system but the X server status has
> not changed.
>
> On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 4:13 PM, NoOp<glgxg@...> wrote:
>> On 07/06/2009 03:37 PM, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
>>> Synopsis: packages are now up to date.
>> ....
>>>
>>> Didn't need to do all that.  Retrying got dpkg to run clean and access
>>> all sources and indexes.
>>
>> Excellent!
>>> Still no xfix.
>>
>> See below - but probably not necessary since you can ssh -X into the
>> machine now. Instead from a terminal:
>>
>> $ sudo /usr/share/recovery-mode/options/xfix
>
> Okay, that made a new xorg.conf, and saved the old one as
> xorg.conf.10090706162221
> It behaves the same as the old one -- black screen.  I can also report
> that even after a remote terminal has done "/etc/init.d/gdm stop" and
> it reports stoppage, that Ctl-Alt-fkeys fail to work and I cannot get
> a local login.
>
> The new xorg.conf is like the default one and is almost empty.
> Useless in this case.

All 9.04 xorg.conf's will be almost empty unless modified manually.

These might be of help (sorry no easy answer):
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Debugging
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Troubleshooting
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Troubleshooting/BlankScreen


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