"Price, Erik" wrote: > > > The problem > > > > > is that the entire top half of the screen shows up as black, > > whereas the > > bottom half of the screen looks cartoonishly big. The resolution must > > somehow be getting set to some abominably low amount (the mouse cursor > > itself is about an inch long in this mode). But KDE is starting up > > because I see the KDE splash screen, and there is an > > exaggeratedly large > > toolbar at the bottom of the screen. Everything is so big > > that, combined > > with the absence of any content in the top half of my screen, I can't > > really do anything or see anything. I just kill the X server with Ctrl > > Alt Backspace and try again, but that's the best results I can get. > > > > > > Has anyone else ever had the entire top half of their monitor be > > > black > > like that? Note that I think that it must be a display > > problem and not a > > physical dead spot because if I move the mouse deep into the > > black area, > > it takes an equal amount of movement to pull it back down into view. > > That is to say, the mouse *is* going somewhere, not just > > hitting a wall. > > > > > > It is pretty hard without much log data. > > I brought in some floppy disks today (can you believe no one in my part of the >building actually had any) and used them to transfer over some hopefully pertinent >files. Since I am unsure if this list accepts attachments, I have appended the data >to the end of this email. > > > What kind of video card is it? If you are not sure, type > > lspci and you should get some info about your pci bus > > including a line > > like (my video card) > > > > 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV5 [Riva TnT2] > > (rev 11) > > Here's the output from that command: > > 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 440GX - 82443GX Host bridge > 00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 440GX - 82443GX AGP bridge > 00:07.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB PIIX4 ISA (rev 02) > 00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82371AB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01) > 00:07.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82371AB PIIX4 USB (rev 01) > 00:07.3 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 02) > 00:11.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905B 100BaseTX [Cyclone] (rev 24) > 00:13.0 PCI bridge: Digital Equipment Corporation DECchip 21152 (rev 03) > 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Cirrus Logic GD 5430/40 [Alpine] (rev 47) > 01:00.1 Display controller: Intergraph Corporation: Unknown device 0780 (rev 40) > 02:0a.0 SCSI storage controller: Adaptec AHA-2940U2/W / 7890 > 02:0e.0 SCSI storage controller: Adaptec AIC-7880U (rev 01) > > > You could also try this: > > > > apt-get install discover > > After installation, this command, when used by itself, doesn't appear to do >anything. I played with it and took some guesses, and the output of `discover video` >is: > > Cirrus Logic GD543x GD 5430/40 [Alpine] > > > apt-get install mdetect > > This one is not on my CD-ROM. I believe I could use apt-get to download it from the >web but I am not sure what I need to do to configure it to look for packages on the >web. > > > XFree86 -configure > > Now this one stumps me. I tried this command, but I was told that an Xserver was >already running (so it aborted). So I used Alt-F7 to go over to the X display and >tried to kill it with Ctrl-Alt-Backspace, but every time I tried to do this it >respawned. I tried to kill every X-related process that appeared to be running, but >I am not sure which one is causing the respawns.
xdm is running, which restarts X every time you log out. Uninstall xdm, so X will now only start when you type startx. Now do XFree86 -configure as root in /root which will generate a config file you can test. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
