X-windows on a Valuepoint

[Mary Pierce]

I have installed the Debian Linux base OS on my IBM Valuepoint 425SX by downloading files from the Debian site and putting them on floppies (there's no CD drive on the Valuepoint.) Everything went fine. Linux boots and I have been able to download and install numerous packages (man pages etc.) using dselect. My problem is that X-windows doesn't want to run. I installed all the required packages for this, though in no particular order, and let the dselect configuration utility tell me what was missing. In the fullness of time, it stopped asking for any more modules; the ones I clearly remember were xdm, cpp, fvwm95-2, svga-server and xbase. I'm sure there were others. Only Xbase gave me trouble owing to its size. I had to pkzip it and decompress it into a dos partition, mount that, and copy it to a directory structure mirroring the Debian site. In the end, though, it installed fine and took me through a configuration process where I was asked to choose between xdm and xstart as methods for starting X-windows. I chose xdm.   Now when I type "xdm" and hit enter, the prompt just returns. I have seen various faq references suggesting that the F7 virtual console might have my X-windows running, but when I Alt-F7 I just see a blinking cursor.   I don't really mind doing this all over if it's at all likely to work. I want to change the way I partitioned the drive anyway. I just wonder whether there is some incompatibility in the video that prevents it from working. This is a 1992 era Valuepoint with a Tseng 4000 chip and one megabyte of video memory all on the motherboard. It seems like a svga-class setup so it was the svga Xserver package I installed along with the other stuff.   Any thoughts or comments much appreciated.   Thanks,   Dale Pierce ([EMAIL PROTECTED])