Help With Booting Please

Forum: User Feedback
Topic: Help With Booting Please
started by: jpsimm

Posted by jpsimm on Jan. 10 2008,07:01

I previously had good luck experimenting with DSL 3.4 but lately not so good. I downloaded fresh copies of 3.4 ISO and 4.0 ISO and also bought the book. With any of the three what I get is this:

Booting goes smoothly until the line that says:

"X Auth: Creating new........ etc /.Xauthority"

This line is then repeated, followed by:

"Giving up"

Then on the next line:

"Xinit: no such file error no 2 unable to connect to X server"

? What is all this? Is this saying that the program expected to find some sort of already existing DSL files somewhere?

What if I wasn't using a hard drive?

Help please. Plain newbie language too please.

note: I unpluged all un-necessary stuff but left two HD's connected via Sata, one with Ubuntu 7.10 and Vista on the other.

My board is: Asus m2n e
cpu is: AMD 64x2 6400
The box is generic. Parts from Fry Electronics.

Posted by curaga on Jan. 10 2008,16:07

OK, that is the error usually caused by low ram, ie less than 16mb, but since your box has a 64-bit cpu, I doubt it ;)

First, try booting using Xfbdev (on the Boot: line write "dsl xsetup" and choose xfbdev when asked)
If that causes the error too, boot to text mode ("dsl 2") and try to start Xvesa (so you'll see any specific errors)

Posted by jpsimm on Jan. 10 2008,17:25

Quote (curaga @ Jan. 10 2008,08:07)

OK I'll try all that, thanks.

I have 2gigs RAM.

Posted by jpsimm on Jan. 11 2008,07:53

It worked!

I need to find out now why this extra action was necessary so the book will help with that. DSL appeals to me because if I learn to use it I'll hopefully regain the level of ability that I had years ago when home 'puters arrived on the scene. Fun times ahead.

Who says 65 year olds can't do something new?

Posted by curaga on Jan. 11 2008,12:35

xfbdev? Good to see it works for you.

I'll explain the difference of these two, in case it helps:
Xvesa and Xfbdev are both tiny X servers, both incorporating only one driver for display, keyboard and mouse. Xvesa has the vesa driver, which can use nearly every card made, that is all that support Vesa 1, 2 or 3. But there are some cards that don't follow the vesa standard well, or just are too old for it.
Xfbdev is X on the framebuffer. Framebuffer is something more cards have. It has less acceleration than vesa though, and can't change the resolution after boot.

Posted by WDef on Jan. 12 2008,01:30

Quote

Who says 65 year olds can't do something new?

Rock on!

What sort of graphics card have you got in your box?

Posted by WDef on Jan. 12 2008,01:31

[Deleted double post - flood control!]