Re: No NIC and No X - WTF Does It Take?

From: Scarletdown (scarletdown_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 11/29/03

  • Next message: jason pearl: "dcopserver errror" 
    Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2003 23:04:18 -0800 (PST)
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org

    Situation Update...

    I went ahead and started from scratch. And _this
    time_ I remembered to enter bf24 at the
    boot prompt in order to install Kernel 2.4. Anyway,
    This time around, I was given the option to
    format the partitions as either ext2 or ext3 (last
    time, ext2 was the only option, meaning it
    wasn't really an option.) Also, there were plenty
    more choices for modules to add to the
    kernel, and I had no trouble whatsoever getting the
    NIC to work. It was so much nicer being
    able to do an FTP install instead of having to swap
    between 8 different CDs.

    Now, after the install was done, and without
    rebooting; I logged in and ran gdm. I was rather
    disappointed that there is no way to log in via gdm as
    root (I really do prefer to do that at this
    time rather than log in as a regular user and then su
    to root, since there seems to be no way
    to work from the desktop as root even after going to a
    terminal window and doing su and
    quitting out of any of the window managers just brings
    me back to the gdm login with no way
    to quit to a command prompt. WTF is up with that?.)
    With X running, I noticed that the
    screen was flickering really bad. I thought it might
    be due to incorrect frequency settings for
    the monitor, but I checked, and they were correct: Hz
    - 31.5-82 / V - 50-150.

    So, unable to do any configuration from within the
    graphical interface, I hit CTRL-Alt-F12 then
    logged into a text-based terminal as root (is there
    any way at all to get back to the desktop
    after doing that?) and ran dpkg-reconfigure
    xserver-xfree86. I entered all the correct bits of
    data, then rebooted; and found myself right back where
    I started before I did my reinstall.
    gdm tried to run and then I finally got an error
    saying that the X-Server couldn't be started,
    and would I like to try to run the configuration
    program again?

    I selected yes and gave the root password, which
    brought me into twm (I think it was), and a
    graphically-based X configuration program. I
    struggled through it using the keypad, since for
    some ****-up reason, the mouse (just an ordinary
    2-button PS/2 mouse) wouldn't work. The
    last thing I did was try to configure the mouse, and I
    was immediately apparently dropped out
    of the configuration program and taken to the twm
    desktop. I exited out of twm and was
    immediately brought back into twm (Why can't I ever
    ****in exit to a command prompt?) And
    now, the system is locked up tight. No mouse
    response, no keyboard response, nothing. All I
    could do was power down.

    So, if anyone can decipher what I just posted, could
    you please tell me _how the hell_ I get
    this working? These are all very common components
    that have been proven to work fine in
    other Linux distros as well as Win-98. What is it
    about Debian that makes it a complete
    struggle and an exercise in total frustration every
    step of the way?

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