Can't load desktop environment

Illusion · 6 Dec 2007 at 08:49

Hi Guys,

Hoping somebody can help out here, yesterday I tried to install Ubuntu 7 on a Dell GX60 which has a 2ghz Celeron and 512mb ram, it has some sort of onboard Intel graphics chip. When trying to install Ubuntu the graphical installer was all corrupted with funny colours and misaligned text etc, this meant I couldnt install. I managed to get Debian on there but this was the same with dodgy graphics etc.

The thing that confuses me is that when booting etc the graphics output is perfectly fine, I can get into Debian if just using the command line and again this looks perfect, but if i run startx then I dont get any output just a blank screen and the computer crashes.

Has anybody come across a problem like this before?

Any help much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

.walls · 6 Dec 2007 at 13:35

it's [probably] because the drivers which X is trying to use are wrong.

the console uses a vesa framebuffer device which is why that works.

try installing the xf86-video-vesa driver and then edit your xorg.conf or XF86Config to reflect the change.

Dj_Jestar · 6 Dec 2007 at 13:54

What error are you getting?

Augmented · 6 Dec 2007 at 18:25

Yep, have you looked in your Xorg.log for any suspicious error messages?

See if there's any output from:

Code:

grep EE /var/log/Xorg.0.log

Illusion · 8 Dec 2007 at 12:10

Hi guys, sorry for the late reply I havent been online for a day or two. Im just reinstallnig Ubuntu now with the alternate CD so I will see how this goes and get back to you if there are still problems.

Thanks

Illusion · 8 Dec 2007 at 13:04

grep EE /var/log/Xorg.0.log returns:

(II) Loading extension MIT-SCREEN SAVER
(EE) intel(0): detecting sil164
(EE) intel(0): Unable to read from DVOI2C_E Slave 112.
(EE) intel(0): Unable to read from DVOI2C_E Slave 236.
(EE) intel(0): ivch: Unable to register 0x00 from DVOI2C_E Slave 112.
(EE) intel(0): Unable to read from DVOI2C_E Slave 112.
(EE) intel(0): tfp410 not detected got VID FFFFFFFF: from DVOI2C_E Slave 112.

This means very little to me as im a newbie to linux so any help is greatly apprectiated.

Thanks in advance

Augmented · 8 Dec 2007 at 18:58

Looks like something is up with the Intel driver. Not sure what any of those errors actually relate to directly.

Post the output from:

Code:

lspci |grep Intel

This will show you what graphics chipset you are using. Then you can make sure you have the right driver loaded for it.

This page suggests the i810 driver might work better than the intel driver.

You can check which driver your xorg is using by looking in your xorg.conf file

Code:

nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

and look at the section called "Device".

It should be something like:

Code:

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Intel Graphics Chipset"
    Driver      "i810"
EndSection

If the driver is "intel", then you might try using the "i810" driver instead and see if that fixes the issue.

Illusion · 9 Dec 2007 at 13:10

Code:

lspci |grep Intel

returns:

Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device

Using dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg I chose the i810 driver but then when I did startx it came up with an error as opposed to a multicoloured screen when using the Intel driver.

I just tried it with the Vesa driver and that was the most promising, I can actually boot into the computer without using safe mode however the screen is misaligned and is still rather unusable.

Thanks for the help so far.