Subject: Re: iBook2001
From: Romain Kang (romain@kzsu.stanford.edu)
Date: Fri Nov 30 2001 - 15:21:00 MST
> Okay, I may be showing how new I am to Linux, but how exactly do I go
> about fiddling with the options?
1. You mention starting the GUI. If your machine is automatically
coming up with the X11 GUI, you should change it to boot to the
regular text mode console instead, at least while you're testing.
In this case, get a regular console by typing <Ctrl><Alt><F2>.
Login, then edit /etc/inittab so that the default runlevel is 3:
id:3:initdefault:
(5 starts X11 automatically). Then go to init level 3:
# init 3
Also, I usually make runlevel 3 my default because I'm interested
in any system diagnostics that appear on the text console.
2. Save your old /etc/X11/XF86Config-4, then move the new one in.
From here on, I prefer to run as a nonprivileged user. Of
course, you'll need to be superuser to make modifications to
XF86Config-4.
3. Try running X in "probeonly" mode:
% startx -- -probeonly >& /tmp/X.output
Your screen should temporarily blank as the video mode changes
to X, then back to text console.
4. Look in X.output and see if there are any errors recorded there.
If there is a problem with XF86Config-4, you'll see complaints
about options that don't work or aren't supported. The usual
course of action will be to comment out lines that X complains
about, or turning off options. If you still have problems, send
email to the list with a description of what you see, plus the
contents of X.output and someone will probably have insightful
suggestions :-).
5. When you have a clean "probeonly" run, try starting it for
real:
% startx >& /tmp/X.output
6. If you come right back to the text console or still get a bad GUI
display, follow the procedure in step 4.
7. If you get into X11 but can't do anything, you can use
<Ctrl><Alt><F2> (or <F3> ... <F6>) to get back to a text
console and stop the X-related processes. Then follow
step 4.
Good luck,
Romain
This archive was generated by hypermail 2a24 : Fri Nov 30 2001 - 15:33:41 MST