On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 12:54 PM, Alan McKinnon <[email protected]> wrote: > On Friday 22 May 2009 21:19:40 Mark Knecht wrote: >> On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 12:08 PM, Matt Harrison >> >> <[email protected]> wrote: >> > Mark Knecht wrote: >> >> On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 11:49 AM, bn <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Mark Knecht ha scritto: >> >>>> Title sort of says it. I have an old machine that I'm setting up as a >> >>>> Myth server. I didn't want X on the machine but I'm having trouble so >> >>>> I emerged xdm and start it using /etc/init.d/xdm start. The drivers >> >>>> get loaded but I get a black screen. No error message in the X log >> >>>> file. >> >>>> >> >>>> I haven't messed with X at this level before. What's the minimum test >> >>>> of X that would display a terminal or something very basic? >> >>> >> >>> Have you tried >> >>> >> >>> startx /usr/bin/xterm >> >> >> >> Yes. Same black screen. Nothing else going on. The processes show up >> >> in ps aux, X as root, xterm as me. >> > >> > I've found before that if everything seems to be running (can list X >> > processes and logs look fine) but you still don't see anything, it's >> > possible it is your monitor. I used to use a really old 15" CRT for a >> > server but it just wouldn't run X at anything over 640x480. Modern >> > monitors will at least tell you if the resolution/refresh is out of >> > limits, but older ones don't often. Try with a different monitor if that >> > one is old or suspect. >> > >> > ~Matt >> >> Good point. I'll hook the machine up to a very good monitor later today. >> Thanks. > > You need to run an X-server, not the one that is displaying xdm because that > will only run xdm and once you authenticate will launch an entirely different > session. Either launch the failsafe session, it gives you twm on gentoo with a > single xterm, or ditch xdm and run startx. > > You can also run xinit (startx is a wrapper script around xinit that launches > user-defined apps) and that gives you plain X without a window manager so you > need to put at least xterm into .xinitrc > >> One question about this X stuff. Is there any difference at all at the >> application level if I run an app displaying on the monitor of that >> machine, or use ssh -X -Y -C and run the app displaying on a remote >> machine? > > No difference whatsoever for basic apps. X is network transparent, meaning > that the X client reads and writes a Unix socket, TCP socket, or whatever else > you can dream up. However, I'm sure you will find that recent fancy stuff like > compiz and OpenGL don't work as expected. > >> If there is absolutely no difference then I don't need to bother with >> this. If there is then I do. The real issue here is that Myth doesn't >> work. If I can be certain that displaying Myth apps on a remote >> screen, such as mythtv-setup or mythfrontend, is really the same then >> I'll just do that. However those apps are currently failing so I'm >> trying to eliminate issues, and possibly creating one I don't care >> about in doing that! > > Running X apps locally locally tests your X libs and your X server. > Running X apps remotely tests the X libs >
Thanks Alan, OK, I switched to a known good monitor, left xdm turned off and used startx at my command line. I see all the right stuff in ps but still no video, and it seems that I've lost control of my keyboard as I cannot use Alt-Ctrl-F2 to get to another console. (The machine currently doesn't have a mouse) MacMini ~ # ps aux | grep x <SNIP> mark 4643 0.0 0.2 3324 1348 tty1 S+ 13:24 0:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/startx mark 4659 0.0 0.2 3680 1104 tty1 S+ 13:24 0:00 xinit /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc -- -nolisten tcp -br -auth /home/mark/.serverauth.4643 -deferglyphs 16 mark 4679 0.0 0.6 8216 3252 tty1 S 13:24 0:00 xterm -geometry 80x66+0+0 -name login mark 4694 0.0 0.6 8376 3488 tty1 S 13:24 0:00 xclock -geometry 50x50-1+1 mark 4695 0.0 0.6 8208 3252 tty1 S 13:24 0:00 xterm -geometry 80x50+494+51 mark 4696 0.0 0.6 8196 3236 tty1 S 13:24 0:00 xterm -geometry 80x20+494-0 root 4735 0.0 0.1 2840 1020 pts/3 R+ 13:26 0:00 ps aux root 4736 0.0 0.1 2060 580 pts/3 R+ 13:26 0:00 grep --colour=auto x MacMini ~ # If I use top in a terminal and kill startx and xinit then I get back to my login console. Possibly xorg-server-1.5 isn't compatible with a 2.6.24 kernel? Maybe I should move this to the Power PC group. Likely I'll find someone there with direct experience. Still, I appreciate the wider audience of gentoo-user. - Mark
