On Monday 27 June 2005 22:22, Mark Fletcher wrote: > Hi > > I recently (last week) upgraded from woody to sarge > using aptitude. First off much to my surprise X > windows appeared to survive the upgrade although my > KDE was shot. > > Removing and re-installing GDM (which I use to launch > X) solved that problem. However over the following > days it gradually became apparent to me that a ton of > packages had been "held back" by aptitude -- > including x-window-system and a ton of libraries. > > To try and solve this, this evening I did a U in > aptitude interactively and then did an aptitude > install to upgrade the held-back packages. This > completed successfully. > > BUT -- now X is shot. If I try to start X either > using GDM or startx, it starts up but then... my > monitor goes into power saving mode!!! And nothing > can get it to come out of it other than Ctrl-Alt-F1, > login as root (without being able to see what I am > doing) then shutdown -r now... Even Ctrl-Alt-BkSpc > doesn't work... > > Now I'm going to try the lists' collective patience > by not supply config files / logs etc. Unfortunately > the only Linux mail program I have running at the > moment runs under X...... So I am having to run this > from Windows from where I can't see the Linux > partitions (same machine...) I can tell you though > that I didn't see anything in the XF86.log file in > /var/log that looked odd, nor in ~/.xession-errors > (no errors at all there, a couple of missing modules, > specifically pex5 and xie, in the former). > > If I can figure out a way to get log files etc to > this list I will do so. In the meantime let me know > what would be useful. My XF86Config-4 hasn't changed > with the upgrade. > > Does this problem sound familiar to anyone and can > anyone suggest a solution. > > X was working perfectly before the upgrade. And after > the upgrade but before I upgraded the held-back > packages.
The problem turned out to be an innocent-looking line in my XF86Config-4 file. I remember a while back I upgraded some packages woody-->woody (noticed using apt-get that my installation was behind what was said to be stable on ftp.debian.org) and at that time I briefly broke my X Windows because I stupidly didn't back up /etc/X11 so couldn't retrieve my old config. While scrabbling around trying to get it work again (this was back then) I uncommented the line in my XF86Config graphics card "Device" section that said "Option FlatPanel True". At the time, it didn't do squat. However after upgrading the X packages to sarge, it seems it now does... ;-) Commenting it out again fixed the problem. Anyone got any wisdom on what that option does? (Apart from stop me from being able to see anything!!!). I do indeed have a flat screen monitor... My card is a nVidia GeForce3. Just curious now, no longer urgent... Cheers Mark -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]