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**dibl** · Jan 13, 2009, 05:49 PM

Re: Freezes when I Try to use &quot

isplay" Menu

This all about that Radeon card. Check #7 on the FAQs in my signature. Install EnvyNG, run it in text mode and let it install whatever ATI driver it chooses. I don't use ATI so I'm not the expert, but I'm pretty confident that you need to stay far away from that "System Settings > Monitor & Display" utility -- as you probably have figured out by now.

Also, note that you can choose "Recovery Console" from your boot menu, and that has a "Fix X" item that you might try first, before you install the Radeon or ATI driver.

**JohanLingen** · Jan 13, 2009, 05:53 PM

Re: Freezes when I Try to use &quot

isplay" Menu

Hi victorisone, welcome to the forums.

I was about to refer to dibl's no. #7 but he was slightly earlier himself

I have been battling a Radeon 9200 SE lately, you can try the ATI drivers, but it was no good for me (yet).

First try to select "Recovery Mode" from the GRUB menu and choose "Repair X-server".
If that doesn't help, install the ATI driver (see dibl's #7)
If that doesn't help (e.g. blank screen after logging into KDE): envyng --uninstall-all

And indeed, stay away from Display... I am surprised you even managed to change it more than once (for me it crashed the first time I changed it).

**victorisone** · Jan 13, 2009, 08:52 PM

Re: Freezes when I Try to use &quot

isplay" Menu

Thanks for the aid! I tried the FAQ suggestion, and went through the Envyng process. There was only one choice under ATI, so I used that.

unfortunately, when I try the next step of the process, the one characterized by "sudo nvidia-xconfig", the process stops.

I tried the obvious, and substituted "ati-xconfig", but that came up with the error message: "command not found".
I skipped ahead and tried to start X anyways, but I got this message: "[Boot Process info] (EE) No devices detected. Fatal Server Error: no screens found. Giving up. (next line) xinit: Connection refused (errno 111): unable to connect to x server (next line) xinit: Nosuch process (errno 3): server error." then returns me to command prompt.

sudo reboot did not help.
sudo startk came up with a "no screen" error.

Thanks for the advice so far, but I need a little more help to make my way through this...

EDIT: I had tried the "Repair X" command before coming to this forum, from information gained in my searching from the previous days. Thanks again for the help.

EDIT#2: Tried to uninstall the envyng stuff, and KDE interface did not even load. There was not even a command line prompt. I fear I broke my OS. Clean reinstall? Good thing I have a backup of all my information.

EDIT#3: No command prompt means no backing my way out of this mess, far as I can tell. Clean reinstallation of Kubuntu is underway. Thanks for the help, and I will stay away from the Display icon from now on. Is there any way to change the resolution from a command prompt, instead of the "Display" menu?

**JohanLingen** · Jan 14, 2009, 03:04 AM

Re: Freezes when I Try to use &quot

isplay" Menu

In GRUB menu you can select "Safe Mode", from there you can try another "Fix X-server" or choose something like "fall to prompt". To really break it, you must go as far as to drop it from the tenth floor.

nvidia-xconfig did not work because it is the command for nvidia cards as you correctly concluded. If any configuring of ATI is to be done after install, use

Code:

aticonfig --initial

Did you already do a clean install or still stuck with the 'old' one?

**victorisone** · Jan 14, 2009, 03:43 AM

Re: Freezes when I Try to use &quot

isplay" Menu

Got it a fresh install. Video resolution is the same.

I will try to download the ati stuff again, with this new information. Any other steps i should be aware of that deviate from the FAQ?

EDIT: Tried "sudo aticonfig --initial". Error message: "Parse error on line 34 of section Module in file /etc/x11/xorg.conf
"Disable" is not a valid keyword in this section"
Then I am returned to command prompt...
I have followed the FAQ thus far, skipping only the xorg.conf backup because I did that first in the GRUB menu.

EDIT#2: Went to envy's website to look for help, followed their directions, and came to the conclusion that my old ATI card can't handle all the newfangled drivers, so I have given up.

Thank you for your time and effort gents, I'm just sorry it was all for nought.

**dibl** · Jan 15, 2009, 05:23 AM

Re: (Solved*) Freezes when I Try to use &quot

isplay" Menu

As I said, I had such a horrid experience with an ATI card when I first undertook to install Linux that I've stayed with Nvidia cards ever since. However, knowing more now, I'm sure that your Radeon card can run a decent display -- no 3D or anything fancy like that, probably, but a generic VESA 1024x768 screen should not be a problem.

If I understand your second post, you installed EnvyNG but at completion you mistakenly ran "nvidia-xconfig" which is useless for ATI cards. Probably the best thing you could do would be to run envyng -t again, following the menu and the prompts that it gives you, and then run "aticonfig --initial" to set the resolution.

**HavocXphere** · Jan 15, 2009, 07:44 AM

Re: (Solved*) Freezes when I Try to use &quot

isplay" Menu

You can try to force it to whatever you need:
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...1401#msg161401
but its not a very elegant solution....first try to sort out the driver issue.

**JohanLingen** · Jan 15, 2009, 09:36 AM

Re: (Solved*) Freezes when I Try to use &quot

isplay" Menu

I think I've got it figured out now, thnx to Ubuntuforums. It looks much like the post HavocXphere is referring to.
If you have any comments on these instructions, please tell me. I have seen many people wondering how to install drivers for ATI 9200, so I'm thinking about posting this as a manual.

If you have any drivers installed, uninstall them. Let's start this clean!

Login to KDE and copy (parts of) this post into a textfile and save it (or else print it out).
Now log out.

Choose "console login" from the menu (lower right corner) and login to the console.

Then do the following:

Code:

sudo /etc/init.d/kdm stop
sudo aptitude install xserver-xorg-video-ati
sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg
sudo /etc/init.d/kdm start

Try to login.

If it's not working, press CTRL+F1
login to the console and do the following:

Code:

sudo /etc/init.d/kdm stop
cd /etc/X11
sudo cp xorg.conf xorg.conf.bak
sudo vim xorg.conf

Take your printed sheet or switch to a second console with CTRL+F2 and open the text file with this post.

Now take over the lines that are marked with >
Be sure to replace the numbers 1440x900 with the native resolution of your monitor.

Code:

Section "Device"
...
>  Driver "ati"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
...
>  DefaultDepth 24
>  SubSection "Display"
>    Depth 24
>    Modes "1440x900"
>  EndSubSection
EndSection

That should do it, you can now login!
Try something you couldn't do before and let us know if it works.

**JohanLingen** · Jan 15, 2009, 06:10 PM

Re: (Solved*) Freezes when I Try to use &quot

isplay" Menu

So what if you want to use other resolutions on your screen?

I wanted to test some video ability with my new settings and remembered the game "Frets on fire" which I couldn't get working a year ago.

I setup this xorg.conf, which let me play the game (at least it moves at normal speed, I just don't know how to use my keyboard for guitar playing 8) )

I also added three more options (two in Device section, the other in the Extensions section) of which I don't know exactly what they're for (someone does?). I'll just describe what effect I saw on enabling them:

1) Backingstore: disabled here, I saw no difference when enabled or disabled;
2) AllowGLXWithComposite: when enabled, I have the impression that responsiveness on pressing the launch button is better while kdm is still loading the autostart apps.
3) Composite: I had some artefacts in the systray (especially the Skype icon). Enabling "Composite" replaces these artefacts with black squares, which look a bit nicer I think.

Overall, I still see some undesirable effects, especially when something is fading or when opening a menu.

Code:

Section "Device"
    Identifier   "Configured Video Device"
    Driver "ati"
#    Option "BackingStore" "true"
    Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier   "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier   "Default Screen"
    Monitor     "Configured Monitor"
    Device     "Configured Video Device"
    DefaultDepth 24

    SubSection "Display"
        Depth 8
        Modes "640x480" "800x600" "1024x768" "1440x900"
    EndSubSection

    SubSection "Display"
        Depth 16
        Modes "640x480" "800x600" "1024x768" "1440x900"
    EndSubSection

    SubSection "Display"
        Depth 24
        Modes "1440x900" "640x480" "800x600" "1024x768"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
    Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

Notice that the native resolution should be the first mode for the DefaultDepth entry (Depth 24)

You can even use System Settings -> Display to some extent... when you change resolution, it will freeze and you will have to shut it down manually, but if you open Display again after reboot, the screen will adjust to the chosen resolution.

**victorisone** · Jan 15, 2009, 07:20 PM

Re: (Solved*) Freezes when I Try to use &quot

isplay" Menu

Code Box 3, with "sudo mv xorg.conf.bak" gets error message "mv: cannot stat 'xorg.conf': No such file or directory"...

"vim xorg.conf" gets me only a screen with blue ~'s down the left side and "xorg.conf" [New File] at the bottom in white.

**JohanLingen** · Jan 16, 2009, 03:28 AM

Re: (Solved*) Freezes when I Try to use &quot

isplay" Menu

I think you forgot to go to the right path first:

Code:

cd /etc/X11

Do you know how vim works? Here is a short list of commands. The most important are:

INSERT change from command mode to insert mode
ESC change from insert mode to command mode

write changes and close file (similar to :w and :q)
:q! close file and discard changes

**JohanLingen** · Jan 20, 2009, 09:41 AM

Re: (Solved*) Freezes when I Try to use &quot

isplay" Menu

@Victorisone: does it work?

**victorisone** · Jan 22, 2009, 10:39 PM

Re: (Solved*) Freezes when I Try to use &quot

isplay" Menu

OK, I got around to using the "mv xorg.conf (and so on)", which appeared to work, but there was no acknowledgment of any operations going on. There was no error message this time, though.

However, "vim xorg.conf" brings up a fresh file, completely empty of any programming. My theory is that I do not have an xorg.conf file. Does every Kubuntu system have one, or is mine maybe named differently? I have no idea what to look for...

Sorry for being such a tough case!

**JohanLingen** · Jan 23, 2009, 03:14 AM

Re: (Solved*) Freezes when I Try to use &quot

isplay" Menu

Originally posted by victorisone

OK, I got around to using the "mv xorg.conf (and so on)", which appeared to work... However, "vim xorg.conf" brings up a fresh file, completely empty of any programming. My theory is that I do not have an xorg.conf file.

Sorry, my mistake. I told you to rename a file xorg.conf to xorg.conf.bak... clearly you won't have any xorg.conf left after that :-X I should have written 'cp' (copy) instead of 'mv' (move);

Go back to directory /etc/X11/ and to undo my mistake, type:

Code:

sudo cp xorg.conf.bak xorg.conf

Now you can edit xorg.conf

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[Solved] Freezes when I Try to use "Display" Menu

[Solved] Freezes when I Try to use "Display" Menu

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