----- Original Message ----- From: "Kent West" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "debian-user" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2003 15:41
Subject: Re: X Windom System will not start
Hoyt Bailey wrote:
File: XFree86.0.log<huge snip>
(EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.
Fatal server error:
no screens found
You need to experiment with your resolution, color depth, and/or video driver. Use "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86" to do so.
--
Kent
Would I be safe assuming : Since the system has regulary been used with Windows XP @ 1280x1024 with a color depth of 32 (true color). That it will pass the resolution & color depth test and that this leaves the video driver? Hoyt
I'm not entirely sure what you're saying, but no, just because a certain res/depth combo works in XP doesn't mean it'll work in X, because the video drivers are different. Typically the manufacturers of video hardware write the driver for Windows, but force the Linux developers to reverse-engineer/guess the hardware specs, resulting in different performance characteristics.
Nowadays, typically the worse thing that happens to a Linux setup with faulty X settings is the machine will lock up, forcing a power-reset (used to be you could smoke the monitor, and with older monitors you still can). So don't be too afraid to experiment. If the machine does lock up, try Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to kill X, or Ctrl-Alt-F2 to get to the second virtual terminal, or ssh in from another box. If none of those methods allow you to regain control of your machine, hit the power button and hope for not too much file system damage (converting to ext3 from ext2 helps quite a bit here - it's a rather trivial conversion).
"lspci" might give you a clue as to which video chipset you have (or look in WindowsXP), and then you might have to guess/Google for which driver to use for that chipset.
-- Kent
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