Mandrake 10.0 Powerpack - Can't start XFree86

[Anthem]

I've installed Drake 10.0, everything goes fine, installation finished, system reboots.

I get the "System booting... Hit ESC for verbose boot" message, but when it gets to the end I get crashed out to bash. When I try to start KDE I lose it again. It says it can't init my nVidia card.

System is an Athlon1800 on an ECS (SiS) board. Video card is geForce2 MX400 in an AGPx4 slot. I've previously installed Suse 9.0 and Fedora Core 1 on this computer with no problems. I tried reinstalling (upgrade option) with the same result. Drake installer finds my card perfectly.

Any advice? I'm making the awkward transition from Microsoft poweruser to Linux newbie. I've done fine so far with the Linux GUI, but today was the first time I've really worked on the command line. I probably haven't used a command line this much in one day since MS-DOS 6.22.

*********
Relevant error messages:

...
NV: could not open control device /dev'/nvidiactl (no such file or directory)
(EE) NVIDIA(0) Failed to initialize the NVIDIA kernel module!
...
XIO: fatal IO error 104 (connection reset by peer)
*********
By the way, what are the bash equivilents of "|more" and "/p"? I can't get page breaks in my text... it just scrolls and scrolls so all I can read is the last screeen's worth.

That tells you how much of a newbie I am.

[dboyer]

youre in for a wonderful treat... diagnosing bad xfree86 output: where i suspect most linux newbies cut their teeth :)


Can you post a copy of your whole /etc/X11/XF86Config file? Might be able to commandline ftp it out from that box (maybe)...

im guessing the easiest solution (from where im sitting) is to manually install the nvidia drivers from nvidia.com and then edit xf86config manually :) (<- ima slackware user)

ironically enough, the command in linux is " | more" as well... although a quick breakdown of what is happening is you are using a "pipe" (the funny | character) to send the output of a program, not to the console, but to the input of another program.. which takes it, and does what ever it does... in more's case, it shoots it out, one screen at a time... you might want to also try " | less" (same effect, slightly different interface.. try both and find which one you prefer) and "| grep foo" (which only spits out all lines that have foo in them)

[nabis]

insert a DOS formatted floppy,
su
mkdir /mnt/floppy
mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
cat /etc/X11/XF86Config | todos > /dev/fd0/my_X.txt
umount /mnt/floppy (IMPORTAN! don't forget to unmount)
(you may post my_X.txt here as an attachment)

As for pager, less works pretty well:
less /etc/X11/XF86Config
(press "q" to quit)

[ShieldWolf]

I've been using Mandrake since version 7.something, and have always had nvidia video cards. I have NEVER had any problems with Mandrake properly recognizing them and giving me a functioning X server. Did this hardware work correctly during the install? You did a graphical install, right?

My guess is that you either have a faulty CD, or you overlooked configuring your video card during the install.

The newbie method of fixing this is to reload linux, and make sure that you select the correct video card and monitor in the configuration section. You'll learn more doing it by hand, but you'll probably have a working X server quicker the other way.


Notice I didn't say a working linux install? When I installed Win2000 the last time, it was on a box with a GeForce4. The install would get so far and die. I eventually took out all of the cards, sound, ethernet, etc, and still the same problem, I then put an old TNT2 video card in and it worked. I then went and downloaded and installed the latest nVidia drivers, and replaced my video card. My point? You got feedback on what the problem was, and if you knew your way around the command line better, you could download the new drivers , install them, edit your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file and then type startx to get to a graphical enviroment. With Windows, I got nada, zip, zilch.

Just consider it a learning experience and don't get discouraged.

[Anthem]

Well, it looks like it's the CDs. I tried to install on an old IBM Pentium-400 I had laying around, and it had the exact same problem (integrated Savage video chipset). I'm running Fedora on it just fine, so I'm boggled. I don't have the bandwidth to download them myself, so I bought a set from OSDepot.com. They're terrible... won't even start the graphical install. Very obviously a poorly-burned CD. So next I went with EasyLinuxCDs, and they're the one's giving me this problem.

Is there any way to check the integrity of my CDs if I didn't burn them myself?

also, nabis:
in your line "
cat /etc/X11/XF86Config | todos > /dev/fd0/my_X.txt", what is "todos"? bash keeps spitting that command back at me, and I can't find it documented anywhere.

[ShieldWolf]

What you're loking for is "MD5 Sums".

From linuxiso.org:
How To Check MD5sums On A Linux Iso Image
MD5 Sums are 32 byte character strings that are the result of running the MD5 sum program against a particular file. Since any difference between two files results in two different strings, MD5's can be used to determine that the file or iso you downloaded is a bit-for-bit copy of the remote file or iso.

If you are running one of the GNU/Linux distributions, you should already have the MD5 program installed. If you run Windows and don't have the program, you can download a dos shell version here or a Windows version here. The Windows version can be downloaded in .zip or .exe format, and installed in the usual manner. The DOS version file is the executable program file. Once downloaded, copy or move it to your c:\windows\command directory. Then, open up an MS-DOS window, and go to the directory of the downloaded iso file that you wish to check. Once you are in that directory,

type the following: md5sum the_name_of_the.iso

If you have a problem with the DOS 8.3 file name limit, just rename the .iso file to an 8.3 name similar to the original file name. Once the program has run, and it will take a few minutes to run on a 640 megabyte file, a 32 digit md5sum will be generated. This sum should be exactly the same as the listed md5 sum for the specific iso you downloaded. If the sums are different, then your downloaded iso is not an exact copy, and will have to be downloaded again. It's a bother, but it happens. Better to know before you waste time and energy trying to install something that is never going to install.

HTH
HAND

[DMR]

Originally posted by Anthem
what is "todos"? A program for converting Unix-format line breaks in text files to DOS format line breaks; converting from DOS to Unix is done with the "fromdos" command.

Originally posted by Anthem
bash keeps spitting that command back at me, and I can't find it documented anywhere. You can see if/where it is installed on your system with one of the following search commands:

locate todos
which todos
whereis todos
find / -name todos

You can copy your X config file to floppy without using the the "todos" program, but the text/line-breaks might look pretty messy if you view the file in a Windows program.

[Anthem]

Yeesh, this has been more trouble than I've ever had on a linux box. Apparently, my CDs are just crappy. I'm tired of messing with them.

Is there any way to do an FTP install on Drake 10? I've been googling with no success so far.