More X Problems
Forum: X and Fluxbox
Topic: More X Problems
started by: SpEcIeS
Posted by SpEcIeS on Dec. 22 2003,15:01
I have installed DSL on an IBM ThinkPad. Everything went good except the dreaded: 
modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module fb0
XIO: fatal IO error 104 (Connection reset by peer) on X server ":0.0"
after 0 requests (0 known processed) with 0 events remaining.
I have searched the message board and none of the techniques seem to work. In my lilo.conf the first line was vga=791, but this appears to point to a resolution of 800x600 and 32bit color(I think). I Changed the setting to 788 as suggested and nothing changed, and I also altered the setting to 768 to indicate the proper ability of my LCD screen, 640x480 8bit color. Now, while running windows I could max my screen at 800x600 4bit, but I am more comfortable with more color.
What do I need to do to get into X?
<-- I like this oneSpEcIeS
Posted by cbagger01 on Dec. 22 2003,19:40
Have you tried using the Xtrident KDrive XWindows server instead of the Xvesa and Xfbdev servers that come with DSL?You can download a copy from here:
< http://www.tuxfan.homeip.net:8080/rule/XFree86/kdrive/8.0/ >
After download, assign executable permissions to the file:
chmod 755 Xtrident
Finally, edit your xsetup file and change the word
"Xvesa" into "/home/damnsmall/Xtrident" or wherever you have stored the file. Then save the edited file and type:
startx
Good Luck.
Posted by SpEcIeS on Dec. 23 2003,03:35
| Quote |
| You can download a copy from here: < http://www.tuxfan.homeip.net:8080/rule/XFree86/kdrive/8.0/ > |
Thanks for the input, but the link does not seem to want to connect.
Is Xtrident KDrive located somewhere else on the internet?SpEcIeS
Posted by cbagger01 on Dec. 23 2003,06:14
Unfortunately, I do not know of another download location for pre-compiled kdrive binaries.The link works for me, so you must have a problem with your ISP or your web browser.
Try downloading the file from a friend's computer and saving to floppy disk.
Good Luck.
Posted by John on Dec. 23 2003,08:27
< http://damnsmalllinux.org/Xtrident.gz > It will be up there for the next couple of days.
Posted by SpEcIeS on Dec. 23 2003,14:54
Thank-you for the help 
The orginal link still does not work for me. I have tried it in Mozilla 1.6 Build ID 2003121012 and Konqueror:
An error occured while loading < http://www.tuxfan.homeip.net:8080/rule/XFree86/kdrive/8.0/: >
Timeout on server
Connection was to www.tuxfan.homeip.net at port 8080
Must be the ISP. Anyway, thank-you John for posting a link.
I have downloaded Xtrident.gz, and I will give it a try. I will post the results.SpEcIeS
Posted by SpEcIeS on Dec. 23 2003,18:14
After some screwing around I finally copyed the file to my laptop. It would seem that mount does not work properly on my system. It will only mount once and only "view" the floppy if it is dos formatted. If the floppy is formatted with ext2 then it will mount, but it will indicate that there is an error with the disk. There is no error on the disk. The floppy works good on my SuSE 8.1 box.Anyway, I used some dos formated disks and booted up the system using dos and copyed the file onto my partition that contains DSL. When I rebooted and applied the Xtrident file I received a error 111.
I even tried to reduce the color to 4bit, and still nothing.The laptop that I am "trying" to install DSL on is an 345C IBM ThinkPad (486DX4-75Mhz, 20MB RAM, 541MB HDD, FDD 1.44MB). I really could use some insight in the matter.
SpEcIeS
Posted by John on Dec. 23 2003,20:31
SpEcIeS, I did some googling for you and came up with very little useful for your particular model,I suggest booting up in text mode and then probing Xvesa to see what the most usable setting will be for you.
As root try:
Xvesa -listmodes
That will give you a list of supported video modes. I'd try them one at a time and test which results work best. It might be that 640x400x8 is the best you are going to get.
You may want to reference:
< http://www.xfree86.org/current/Xvesa.1.html >
I don't think you are going to get a very pleasant X session using Xvesa, but you should be able to get something somewhat useable.
Posted by SpEcIeS on Dec. 23 2003,21:21
Wow.. thanks John for you help. I will try out your suggestions. One question though, when I use the installation bootdisk the display image comes up just before the 'boot:' prompt. I figured, and I could be wrong, that if the image can be viewed then graphic display is possible. Is this a correct assumption? If so, what display does the bootdisk image use?
SpEcIeS
Posted by SpEcIeS on Dec. 23 2003,21:33
Ok.. here is what happened. When I used the Xvesa -listmodes the command produced: Segmentation faultShould I try and reinstall DSL? Perhaps the Xvesa file is corrupted?
SpEcIeS
Posted by John on Dec. 23 2003,21:47
That logo is 640x400 and only 16 colors which is the same as 4 bit I believe.
Posted by SpEcIeS on Dec. 23 2003,21:54
Well it does not look good... Would I run into the same problems if I were to try another distro such as Tiny Linux? I suppose that I would. Also, I am going to have to research the video display on the IBM site. It is not easy because their site search engine brings up everything except what you want to know.. I noticed on another post on this message board that someone succeeded with Slackware 9.1, I think it was with a 350 model.
Thanks for your help.
SpEcIeS
Posted by John on Dec. 23 2003,22:42
Might be useful?< http://peipa.essex.ac.uk/tp-linux/ >
No mention of 345C though.
Posted by SpEcIeS on Dec. 24 2003,16:16
After searching the net I found a PDF document containing all of the withdrawn laptops, and there was mine. This would explain the lack of support on their site.It would seem that the graphic card is a:
Controller: WD90C24A Rev C with 1 MB DRAM
Vendor: Western Digital / External SVGA to 1024 x 768 with 256 colors (up to 60 Hz)
Arch/Data Path: VL-Bus local bus / 32 bit / Simultaneous LCD and CRT
And the display is:
Type: VGA color / 640 x 480
Colors: 256 simultaneous colors
Technology: Black Matrix TFT - active matrix
Diagnle Size: 10.4 inch
Contrast Ratio: 100 to 1 Yes
Hopefully this will help out in this quest.
SpEcIeS
Posted by SpEcIeS on Dec. 24 2003,17:21
After looking around in the XF86 docs I found that the driver that I would need would either be the vga generic driver or XF86_SVGA. However, I am really not sure how to go about applying this driver. SpEcIeS
Posted by Doc_Terence on Dec. 25 2003,10:40
HI SpEcIeS,look at the thread x window problem, í own a thinkpad 760
and also didnīt succeed to get x server properly running :-(
Finally switched back to win98se.....
Greetz Doc.
Posted by SpEcIeS on Dec. 28 2003,15:53
I went back to windows also. SpEcIeS
Posted by John on Dec. 28 2003,20:44
The Thinkpad 760 would probably work okay at 800x600, 'fb800x600' at boot.SpEcIeS, you can do a lot in Linux in text mode, for instance Links is a very good text browser, and you still have your choice of three editors, you could add mutt for email, MC for file browsing, etc.
Posted by Crotalus on Dec. 30 2003,00:18
Ok, your original error was because you were trying to make a framebuffer server on a machine without a fb0 device. I'm not sure about how to make this device with having LILO do it, but here's the fix, made by yours truly.Once you get the fb0 error, you should be at a standard console. goto to etc (cd etc) and edit lilo.conf (nano lilo.conf). At the top or somewhere near the middle you should see the line 'vga=#' where # could be any number. DSL Initally set this number to a default value that works on most computers, and a few laptops. What you need to do is change this number to one of the below, which ever you prefer.
Colours 640x400 640x480 800x600 1024x768 1152x864 1280x1024 1600x1200
--------+--------------------------------------------------------------
4 bits | ? ? 0x302 ? ? ? ?
8 bits | 0x300 0x301 0x303 0x305 0x161 0x307 0x31C
15 bits | ? 0x310 0x313 0x316 0x162 0x319 0x31D
16 bits | ? 0x311 0x314 0x317 0x163 0x31A 0x31E
24 bits | ? 0x312 0x315 0x318 ? 0x31B 0x31F
32 bits | ? ? ? ? 0x164 ?
4 bits = 16 colours
8 bits = 256 colours
15 bits = 32,768 colours
16 bits = 65,536 colours
24 bits = 16.8 million colours
32 bits - 16.8 million colours
0x300 = 768 0x301 = 769 0x302 = 770
0x303 = 771 0x305 = 773 0x307 = 775
0x310 = 784 0x311 = 785 0x312 = 786
0x313 = 787 0x314 = 788 0x315 = 789
0x316 = 790 0x317 = 791 0x318 = 792
0x319 = 793 0x31A = 794 0x31B = 795
0x31C = 796 0x31D = 797 0x31E = 798
0x31F = 799 0x161 = 353 0x162 = 354
0x163 = 355 0x164 = 356
Once you have the lilo.conf modded, you need to save and at the console type: lilo. This allows LILO to check out the config file before a restart, if ou don't do this it's likely that you won't be able to start back up. Now, restart OR if you had an Xvesa server on run xsetup.sh and change it to Xfbdev. This has worked for me on my laptop, G/L.
Posted by John on Dec. 30 2003,00:25
Crotalus, can you modify your post so that it would be a general howto and then post it in the "howto" forum? Then it will be easy to find and we could reference it as needed.
Posted by Crotalus on Dec. 30 2003,00:26
Will do.