Disaster - X won't load any more

[larryalk]

Earlier today I noticed the computer had slowed down drastically so I closed all windows and rebooted.
Now I cannot log on to KDE although I can log on to a console.

It _was_ a perfectly functioning Breezy 6.06 installation.

Today I was working with sed and awk on text files. The only thing that might have slowed down the computer was j-pilot which was extensively editing when the slowdown first appeared.
My only other apps running (besides a dozen Kterms) was Opera, Thunderbird and Xchat - all of which I routinely run.
I noticed that j-pilot shut down by itself but the others all finally responded to shutdown.

What should I do? How can I locate the problem - I suspect X but it could also be KDE. I don't know how to load other window managers in Kubuntu. I might try something light like xfce
just to see if X is still alive.

It would be a bear to reload Breezy as I've done a _lot_ of tweaking although much of it was put in my standard i{distro} file. Also I have a lot of space on an unused partition to I could copy over the entire system and gradually bring back stuff.

I captured some files that might help in diagnosis:
07-27-2006 19:08 dmesgJul27at1908
07-27-2006 19:23 dmesgJul27at1923
07-27-2006 19:51 dmesgJul27at1951
07-27-2006 19:53 bad
07-27-2006 1:42 xorg.conf
07-27-2006 20:23 Xorg.0.log
07-27-2006 19:52 faillog

After a search of this forum, I tried a tip from someone to
sudo dpkg-reconfig xserver-xorg
but all it did was produce a new /etc/xorg.conf very similiar
to the one before.

I don't have a good feeling about this one. Breezy only first got loaded earlier this month and I certainly fell in love with it.

Larry

[aysiu]

Re: Disaster - X won't load any more

I think the idea of loading another desktop environment is a good one.

That will help you diagnose whether it's a KDE problem or an X problem. If XFCE works and KDE doesn't, it's a KDE problem. If XFCE doesn't work, either, it's likely an X problem.

sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install xubuntu-desktop
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start

Try using GDM in place of KDM, too.

[larryalk]

Re: Disaster - X won't load any more

I've done some things and have a lot more information. If anyone can suggest where to go next I'd be very appreciative. There are some error messages below that I don't understand and need some help on interpretation.

1. I made a complete copy of both / and /home of the Kubuntu installation to another hard disk using cp -avx.

2. Per aysiu's suggestion I updated aptitude and then ran 'sudo aptitude install xubuntu-desktop'. Boy that installed a whole mess of stuff including xfce4.

3. I ran sudo /usr/bin/startxfce4 and it came up! So at least I have some kind of X.

4. Then I ran both /usr/bin/startx and /usr/bin/startkde. Both produced error messages which I list below. I suspect there are answers as to what's wrong in the error messages but I don't know how to interpret them.

The first (startkde.error) is mercifully short but seems to only say that the X server could not start. Yet xfce4 started fine.

The second and longer error report probably has some good meat - anyone know what it means?

Thanks for any help you can give me.
I really want to run kde, not xfce4 for the rest of my life ;-)

Larry


--------- startkde.error ------------
cat startkde.error
xsetroot: unable to open display ''
xset: unable to open display ''
xsetroot: unable to open display ''
startkde: Starting up...
ksplash: cannot connect to X server
kdeinit: Aborting $DISPLAY is not set.
Warning: connect() failed: : No such file or drectory.
ksmserver: cannot connect to X server
ERROR: Couldn't attach to DCOP server!
startkde: Shutting down...
Warning: connect() failed: : No such file or directory
ERROR: Can't contact kdeinit!
startkde: Running shutdown scripts...
startkde: Done.

----------end startkde.error ----------

-------- startx.error --------------
cat startx.error
xauth: creating new authority file /home/lba/.serverauth.8408

X: warning; process set to priority -1 instead of requested priority 0

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 kinda 2.6.15-26-386 #1 PREEMPT Fri Jul 7 19:27:0
Build Date: 16 March 2006
Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
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: Fri Jul 28 08:09:16 2006
(==) Using config file: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf"
(**) RADEON(0): RADEONPreInit
(EE) Unable to find a valid framebuffer device
(EE) RADEON(0): Failed to open framebuffer device, consult warnings and/or error
(you may have to look at the server log to see warnings)
(**) RADEON(0): RADEONScreenInit c0000000 0
(**) RADEON(0): Map: 0xc0000000, 0x04000000
(**) RADEON(0): RADEONSave
(**) RADEON(0): RADEONSaveMode(0x81fe228)
(**) RADEON(0): Read: 0x0000000c 0x00030065 0x00000000
(**) RADEON(0): Read: rd=12, fd=101, pd=3
(**) RADEON(0): RADEONSaveMode returns 0x81fe228
(**) RADEON(0): DRI New memory map param
(**) RADEON(0): RADEONInitMemoryMap() :
(**) RADEON(0): mem_size : 0x04000000
(**) RADEON(0): agp_size : 0x081fe100
(**) RADEON(0): agp_base : 0x081fe100
(**) RADEON(0): MC_FB_LOCATION : 0xc3ffc000
(**) RADEON(0): MC_AGP_LOCATION : 0xffffffc0
(**) RADEON(0): RADEONModeInit()
1280x1024 135.00 1280 1296 1440 1688 1024 1025 1028 1066 (24,32) +H +V
1280x1024 135.00 1280 1296 1440 1688 1024 1025 1028 1066 (24,32) +H +V
(**) RADEON(0): Pitch = 10485920 bytes (virtualX = 1280, displayWidth = 1280)
(**) RADEON(0): dc=13500, of=27000, fd=120, pd=2
(**) RADEON(0): RADEONInit returns 0x81febd8
(**) RADEON(0): RADEONRestoreMode()
(**) RADEON(0): RADEONRestoreMode(0x81febd8)
(**) RADEON(0): RADEONRestoreMemMapRegisters() :
(**) RADEON(0): MC_FB_LOCATION : 0xc3ffc000
(**) RADEON(0): MC_AGP_LOCATION : 0xffffffc0
(**) RADEON(0): Map Changed ! Applying ...
(**) RADEON(0): Map applied, resetting engine ...


---------- end cat startx.error ------------