X server failes: no screens found

[MrM]

Hi!

I've installed Kubuntu a week ago on one of my older machines. I installed all the updates and some additional software via the packet manager and everything was working fine untill today. Now the machine goes through the normal boot process and everything loads OK, untill the X server should start. Then, when the login screen should have appeared, the "splash screen" (the logo displayed during boot) just freezes and nothing happens.

After a couple of hours browsing through various forums I figured out where the problem lies: the X server failes to start. When trying to start it up manually with startx, this error comes up:

(EE) No devices detected.

Fatal server error:
no screens found

I haven't installed nor upgraded any software since the last boot, when everything still worked, so I really have no idea, what could have gone wrong.

I've attached my xorg.conf and Xorg.0.log files if that helps. And this is all the output I get from startx:

xauth: creating new authority file /root/.serverauth.5056

X Window System Version 7.0.0
Release Date: 21 December 2005
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0, Release 7.0
Build Operating System:Linux 2.6.15.7 i686
Current Operating System: Linux zaphod 2.6.15-26-386 #1 PREEMPT Thu Aug 3 02:52:00 UTC 2006 i686
Build Date: 16 March 2006
	Before reporting problems, check [url]http://wiki.x.org[/url]
	to make sure that you have the latest version.
Module Loader present
Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting,
	(++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational,
	(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Wed Aug 23 21:13:19 2006
(==) Using config file: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf"

(EE) No devices detected.

Fatal server error:
no screens found
XIO: fatal IO error 104 (Connection reset by peer) on X server ":0.0"
   after 0 requests (0 known processed) with 0 events remaining.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[machoo02]

Re: X server failes: no screens found

Are you sure that you didn't upgrade the X server recently? There was a problem a few days ago with the xorg-xserver-core package that was in the repos that caused major problems, and what you describe sounds exactly like it.

Check to see what version of the X server you have:

dpkg -p xserver-xorg-core

If the version you have is 1:1.0.2-0ubuntu10.3 then you have the problem package. Version 10.4 fixes the problem.

Check this thread over at the ubuntu forums for more information

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=241254

Hope this helps...

-matt

[MrM]

Re: X server failes: no screens found

Yes, I've come accross that thread too, and checked the version of the X server. I have 10.4, so I guess this isn't it.

Thanks for the reply though. Any other idea?

I should also mention that I tried reconfiguring the X server with and without the -phigh switch, but to no avail. I also tried booting from the LiveCD and copying the generated xorg.conf to the hard disk and it didn't work either. The LiveCD works fine though.

I don't have that much experience with linux, so I really don't know what else to try. I probably just have to reset some setting to default, as it works fine with the LiveCD, but don't know which.

If anybody has any other idea, I would really appreciate it.

[MrM]

Re: X server failes: no screens found

Never mind. It turns out this fixed the problem after all.

Although I have seen and been referred to that thread many times, I never bothered to upgrade, since it said I have version 10.4, when I typed this:

sudo aptitude show xserver-xorg-core | grep Version

Now I decided to try and upgrade anyway and it worked.

Thanks again for the reply.