[CS-FSLUG] How do I fix screen configuration from the command line?

[Ruth Marlene Friesen]

I want especially to thank, Ed Hurst, and Ciaran Hamilton,
for your helpful suggestions. You've probably been wondering if I followed 
them. I did get to it last evening, and though I made pages of notes I'll try 
to summarize most of it. I did finally get into SuSE this morning, but can't 
go online yet from there.

First of all, my printer is not working in Mandrake, so I had to copy out your 
emailed suggestions by hand. Also some notes from an online command tutorial.

(I got a reply from Fred too, who is upset with me for installing Mandrake, 
but he did have a helpful suggestion too, for getting at SaX2, to reset the 
screen settings).

Using the SuSE 9.3 install CD #1, I noticed that when "Installation - Safe 
Settings" is highlighted the boot options line shows: 
rier=off ide=nodma ide wait=50; i8042.nomux pasmouse.proto=bare

So I think you're right, Ed, that nodma is is just when in safe settings.

To get to a prompt I chose Installation, and then choose, "boot installed 
system". I got to a login and entered as root.
cd ./boot/grub
joe menu.lst

But I couldn't find that line your described, Ed. However, that may also be 
because Mandrake wrote over those files in creating a bootloader.
By hand, I wrote out every line in that file, but I guess I don't have to give 
it to you here. You'll see momentarily.

I got back to the prompt, and tried;  cd /etc/X11
then; joe Xorg.conf

I found that Device section and put that # mark before line Bus ID  "1:0:0"

Ciaran, you asked for that /var/log/Xorg.0.log file. -  Did you have any idea 
how long it was? :) Since I had no means of copy/paste digitally, I did copy 
out by hand, the sections that I thought MIGHT be useful to know.

I spotted several similar files with .old added to them when I tried the lst 
command, but I only looked at the one. At the end, it suddenly came up with 
the same error message I had quoted in my email yesterday, word for word. The 
last lines were;
Fatal server error:
 no screens found.

So I went back to the login. I tried logging into SuSE as root and got the 
same error messages as on Tues. but nothing about dma this time.

I tried Fred's suggestion of  "init 3" Nothing happened.
Then I  tried his "Sax2"  That did bring up that program, and it asked if I 
wanted to keep the suggested setting or configure. Of course, I jumped at 
configure!

I had quite a time with the Desktop Geometry setting. I set it many times 
over, and when I went back to check, it had cleared itself. It was NOT 
saving. Same as on Tues. morning when all this began.

I tried setting some of the other things for a change. I changed Fred's 
resolution setting from 1024 x 768 to 800 x 600 (which works fine for me in 
Mandrake). It took several tries but finally it held.

When I enabled the 3D capability I got a screen text sizer window, with fonts 
too huge to see! I fussed with that quite a while, saved it, then disabled 
it.

Finally, after several tests that showed nothing but a black screen, I saved, 
and it held ( I peeked to make sure), so I went back to login and tried 
"startx"

Oh bummer! I got the grey screen with the x in the middle, then an error 
message; "Could not start kstartupconfig. Check your installation."

I looked for that file with joe, but it was titled "New File" at the top and 
looked empty.

It was way past my shutdown time for the night, so I halted and went to bed. 

This morning I tried again, going in through the Install CD way once more.
I tried the Repair option again, and picked Customized, and specifically asked 
it to check the bootloader config. (It also chose to do the Swap areas, File 
systems, and fstab entries). When done it rebooted.

There was a bunch of loading lines, then; 
VFS: can't find ext3 file system dev/de0(3.1)
mount: error 22 mounting ext3 flags freeing unused kernel memory 176k free
Kernel Panic: No init found. Try passing init option to kernel.

Hmm? How do I do that? There was no prompt, and the keyboard was flashing and 
frozen. Power switch wouldn't even work.

So I unplugged and re-plugged the box, and rebooted.

Got back in through the Install CD - Installation - boot installed system

Hallelujah!... I think... I reached login and got into my KDE desktop, but 
with all the fonts HUGE! I mean 2 to 3 inches tall!

I finally used Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to get to a commandline prompt. I tried Sax2 
again. My monitor settings were all garbled and there were two of them, with 
one empty. No settings. So I carefully re-did all my settings, and deleted 
the empty one.

At 10:08 AM I finally got back into a desktop environment that I could see and 
use. My fonts were extra large, but then I'd set those to about 15 and 16 
since my first install on Sept. 3. I was pretty sure the 800 x 600 resolution 
was doing this, so I scaled them down to about 12. Much better.

I should mention that I have vision problems, am saving up for new glasses, 
and the resolution Fred had me set the screen at, had made the system fonts 
so tiny I was constantly peering at things through my lower bifocals. This 
new resolution makes me much happier!

But then I discovered that I have no network settings. I tried to do that in 
Yast, but when I began with building a new bootloader that would merge my two 
operating systems, (pleased to find that possible) it hung up at 50% of 
saving the settings. Had to xkill that yast window twice and still it 
couldn't get past that.

So - it seems my main hurdle to cross now is to get the online connection up 
and running again, and if it would allow me to save a bootloader that takes 
care of both systems, I'd be glad to have a dual boot computer again. I did 
before with Win98 and Mandrake as I was first dabbling in linux last year. It 
is wonderful to have a back door to use when you need to cry for help!

I do like SuSE and want to make it my home/main working environment. This is 
my third day away from my usually busy and long work days and emails!

Do you think I should just try the upgrade installation again?

Folks, your helpful suggestions are MUCH, MUCH appreciated!

Blessings & Thanks,
Ruth






On November 2, 2005 04:46 pm, Ed Hurst wrote:
> Ruth, I'm afraid Fred is no longer on the list right now. Maybe I can help.
>
> Ruth Marlene Friesen wrote:
> > "Your dma on the hard drive is turned off. It may really slwo down the
> > fsck process." (I can't find that 'dma' in Bios).
>
> We'll do this one first. I am guessing you installed SUSE using the
> "failsafe" option. I had to do that with SUSE 9.3 on my machine. The fix
> is simple, but will *seem* complicated because you have to edit a text
> file. Since you can't get the X server working, you'll have to do it on
> the console.
>
> You probably installed something called "joe" which is a text editor for
> the console. Once you have booted SUSE, login as root. Then navigate to
> your Grub config directory:
>
>    cd /boot/grub
>
> Then, open the menu file in joe:
>
>    joe menu.lst
>
> That file ends in "LST" but in lower case letters. The PGDN and arrow
> keys should work as normal, so move down the file until you see a long
> line that starts with: "title SUSE LINUX 9.3". The next line should be
> indented and starts with "kernel". Using the arrow keys, run down the
> length of that line until you see a "ide=nodma" and delete that part.
>
> When you have done that, hit the keys: CTRL+k then x. That should save
> the file and close the editor. It will save a backup copy of the file by
> adding a tilde (~) at the end (menu.lst~) in case you need to put
> restore it.
>
> Now just type the command "reboot" and see if that error during boot
> goes away.
>
> > There were also lines about  --
> > ....................................................................
> > "using config file /etc/X11/Xorg.cong
> > (WW) MGA. No matching Device section for instance (BUS ID PCI:1:0:0)
> > found. (EE) Screen 0 deleted because of no matching config section.
> > (EE) Device(s) deleted, but none match base in the config file.
> > Fatal server error: no screens found
> > Please contact the Xorg Foundation support at http://wiki.Xorg for help.
> > Please also check the logfile at "/var/log/Xorg.0.log for additional
> > information.
> > X10: fatal 10 error 104 (connection reset by peer) on x server ".0.0"
> > after 0 requests (0 known processed) with 0 events remaining."
> > ................................................................
>
> Here, the problem is your xorg.conf file requires a call to some portion
> of your hardware that cannot be found:
>
> "(WW) MGA. No matching Device section for instance (BUS ID PCI:1:0:0)
> found."
>
> Looks like you have a Matrox video card, hmmm? Okay, if you were
> successful with fixing the DMA issue, then lets have a try at this one.
> Navigate in the console /etc/X11/
>
>   cd /etc/X11
>
> Then open the configuration file in joe again:
>
>    joe xorg.conf
>
> Scroll down until you see something like this:
>
> -----------------------
> Section "Device"
>   BoardName    "mga"
>   BusID        "1:0:0"
> -----------------------
>
> At the start of that line "BusID" simply put one hash mark (#), which is
> what we call "commenting out" the line. This keeps X.org from reading
> it. Then, while still logged in as root, run "startx" and see what
> happens. If it fails, post the response here if you can.