Re: Help... I think I've shot myself in the foot...
Peter S. Hayes wrote: Hi all, I've had Debian dual-booted with Win XP on my portable for about six months. I haven't worked all the bugs out yet, but I've been getting better! And I try using it for more of my personal work (my job requires Windows at the moment). Yesterday while at work, I was installing a package (R - language/stats/graphing package) using dselect and, since there were some required package upgrades, installed a couple of those also... while working on my desktop (fool that I am) and being interrupted occasionally with other people asking questions... Somewhere - and I think this was in the configuration of a new xdm, but I'm not sure - there was a screen explaining a setup of keyboards and the choices I would be asked to choose from. This probably wasn't a good time to do all of this, but hind sight is always 20/20. I picked a don't touch my keyboard choice, thinking it would leave the present arrangement (which was fine). Since rebooting this morning I cannot log in at the X prompt. My mouse works fine, I have the X Window login prompt (provided by xdm I think) but every key on my keyboard does nothing except toggle the display window through three size variations... I can do nothing but manually kill the power (with all the corrupted files resulting). use journaling filesystem:-) what about ctrl-alt-f1? ctrl-alt-backspace? load system into single user mode (init=/bin/sh or something like that, check lilo docs) and disable X for the time being (see man update-rc.d, something like update-rc.d xdm remove should get rid of xdm, update-rc.d xdm defaults should make it start during boot) you can also try to login via network and run /etc/init.d/xdm stop then check which keyboard you have defined in /etc/X11/XF86Config-4, it should look something like this: Section InputDevice Identifier Logitech Cordless iTouch Driver keyboard Option CoreKeyboard Option XkbRules xfree86 Option XkbModel logicordless Option XkbLayout us EndSection you just need to choose correct XkbModel, see /etc/X11/xkb/rules/xfree86.lst for available models (one of the pc* should work for most of the keys) erik -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Help... I think I've shot myself in the foot...
Peter S. Hayes wrote: Thank you! I did read enough to figure out how to reboot (through LILO) into a single-user mode so that X is not started. The keyboard works fine there; it's only after X is started with the logon that the keyboard goes wacky. I haven't figured out how to get networking and other facilities running without the X... I think all other runlevels start X and I haven't quite the confidence to go modify a lot of the startup files (RC# whatever # should be) to eliminate X from that level, although that will be another project on my list of Linux learning experiences (assuming that I will - somehow, someway - get Linux running with X on this thing)! I've been looking for something in the chain of xdm files that would specify an incorrect keyboard and hadn't actually considered the xfree86... So, if that's where the keyboard would be configured, I can go in and rerun the config program to redo that file... Maybe! At least it's something to try! Well, if you want to do it by hand (and shure this is the best way to learn), you can edit /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 and fidle with one the sections that says input device and then has a mention to keyboard. To be able to do that you might want to use : #nano /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 (note you have to do it as root or you wont be able to right to the file) If you don't succeed you might want to try this tip I got from this M.L. : ...installing hotplug, mdetect and read-edid before X will enable it to auto-detect most everything for you anyway. And this command to reconfigure X: dpkg-reconfigure -plow xserver-xfree86 Hope this helps . Good luck John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Help... I think I've shot myself in the foot...
Title: Message Hi all, I've had Debian dual-booted with Win XP on my portable for about six months. I haven't worked all the bugs out yet, but I've been getting better! And I try using it for more of my personal work (my job requires Windows at the moment). Yesterday while at work, I was installing a package (R - language/stats/graphing package) using dselect and, since there were some required package upgrades, installed a couple of those also... while working on my desktop (fool that I am) and being interrupted occasionally with other people asking questions... Somewhere - and I think this was in the configuration of a new xdm, but I'm not sure - there was a screen explaining a setup of keyboards and the choices I would be asked to choose from. This probably wasn't a good time to do all of this, but hind sight is always 20/20. I picked a "don't touch my keyboard" choice, thinking it would leave the present arrangement (which was fine). Since rebooting this morning I cannot log in at the X prompt. My mouse works fine, I have the X Window login prompt (provided by xdm I think) but every key on my keyboard does nothing except toggle the display window through three size variations... I can do nothing but manually kill the power (with all the corrupted files resulting). Help... what, in my arrogant getting-to-feel-pretty-comfortable-with-Linux stupidity, did I do to myself? I'm trying to work my way through the initialization files and the xdm config, but I haven't had any luck so far... Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks in advance... Mournfully back in Windows... Pete
Re: Help... I think I've shot myself in the foot...
Peter S. Hayes wrote: Hi all, I've had Debian dual-booted with Win XP on my portable for about six months. I haven't worked all the bugs out yet, but I've been getting better! And I try using it for more of my personal work (my job requires Windows at the moment). Yesterday while at work, I was installing a package (R - language/stats/graphing package) using dselect and, since there were some required package upgrades, installed a couple of those also... while working on my desktop (fool that I am) and being interrupted occasionally with other people asking questions... Somewhere - and I think this was in the configuration of a new xdm, but I'm not sure - there was a screen explaining a setup of keyboards and the choices I would be asked to choose from. This probably wasn't a good time to do all of this, but hind sight is always 20/20. I picked a don't touch my keyboard choice, thinking it would leave the present arrangement (which was fine). Since rebooting this morning I cannot log in at the X prompt. My mouse works fine, I have the X Window login prompt (provided by xdm I think) but every key on my keyboard does nothing except toggle the display window through three size variations... I can do nothing but manually kill the power (with all the corrupted files resulting). Help... what, in my arrogant getting-to-feel-pretty-comfortable-with-Linux stupidity, did I do to myself? I'm trying to work my way through the initialization files and the xdm config, but I haven't had any luck so far... Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks in advance... Mournfully back in Windows... Pete If your machine is on the network and you have ssh installed, you can ssh in and make repairs, thus avoiding the power-off scenario. Does Ctrl-Alt-F1 get you to a console, or just toggle the display window as you mention above? If it gets you to a console, does the keyboard work properly there? I'm not sure how to fix the keyboard mapping, but I'm responding in the hope that these questions might spur a line of thinking that'll get you further towards repair. -- Kent -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Help... I think I've shot myself in the foot...
--- Kent West [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Peter S. Hayes wrote: Hi all, I've had Debian dual-booted with Win XP on my portable for about six months. I haven't worked all the bugs out yet, but I've been getting better! And I try using it for more of my personal work (my job requires Windows at the moment). Yesterday while at work, I was installing a package (R - language/stats/graphing package) using dselect and, since there were some required package upgrades, installed a couple of those also... while working on my desktop (fool that I am) and being interrupted occasionally with other people asking questions... Somewhere - and I think this was in the configuration of a new xdm, but I'm not sure - there was a screen explaining a setup of keyboards and the choices I would be asked to choose from. This probably wasn't a good time to do all of this, but hind sight is always 20/20. I picked a don't touch my keyboard choice, thinking it would leave the present arrangement (which was fine). Since rebooting this morning I cannot log in at the X prompt. My mouse works fine, I have the X Window login prompt (provided by xdm I think) but every key on my keyboard does nothing except toggle the display window through three size variations... I can do nothing but manually kill the power (with all the corrupted files resulting). Help... what, in my arrogant getting-to-feel-pretty-comfortable-with-Linux stupidity, did I do to myself? I'm trying to work my way through the initialization files and the xdm config, but I haven't had any luck so far... Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks in advance... Mournfully back in Windows... Pete If your machine is on the network and you have ssh installed, you can ssh in and make repairs, thus avoiding the power-off scenario. Does Ctrl-Alt-F1 get you to a console, or just toggle the display window as you mention above? If it gets you to a console, does the keyboard work properly there? I'm not sure how to fix the keyboard mapping, but I'm responding in the hope that these questions might spur a line of thinking that'll get you further towards repair. -- Kent If Kent idea doesn't work... Maybe you could modyfy XFree86.conf from the windows side using explore2fs? But I know the write to linux partition feature is experimental and I haven't tried this out. This can be risky, but if nothing else comes up... Eric __ Do you Yahoo!? Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now http://companion.yahoo.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Help... I think I've shot myself in the foot...
eric brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: If Kent idea doesn't work... Maybe you could modyfy XFree86.conf from the windows side using explore2fs? But I know the write to linux partition feature is experimental and I haven't tried this out. This can be risky, but if nothing else comes up... But if he has to take down the machine anyway he might as well start from a (rescue) floppy/cd and repair everything under Linux. I did use the write capabilities of explore2fs, though, and without any problems so far. Of course, it's your own risk ... Andreas Goesele -- Omnis enim res, quae dando non deficit, dum habetur et non datur, nondum habetur, quomodo habenda est. Augustinus, De doctrina christiana -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
