crashed my X

[Guest]

Hi guys, I am new to linux... well, I'm very green.
I am running Kubuntu 10.04 and tonight I successfully had installed the driver that allows my NVIDIA card to render beautiful FX. I installed all this through bash shell so I was pretty happy with myself.
This excess in confidence got me to push my ignorance level by trying to get the cube to work. It might have been installed already but instead thought I had to install it.
I forget the exact commands I have done but it looks similar to this one and more...
sudo apt-get -y install compiz compiz-gnome compizconfig-settings-manager compiz-fusion-plugins-extra libcompizconfig-backend-gconf

which got my desktop to become very slow in response. I also noticed that the top of the windows were gone (the X so you can close the window was not even visible).

When I rebooted my computer, I was welcomed with a login screen. I guess I messed up my X.

Afterwards, i looked up the internet for how to install the compiz fusion and found out this command that strangely resembles the one I ran.. it says it was intended for GNOME, not for KDE..

Knowing that ubuntu (well kubuntu) doesn't have a system restore available to use, would there be something I could do from the bash to deinstall whatver you might think might have messed up my computer?

sorry for not having more information available...

Thanks in advance,



Pete

[The Liquidator]

Re: crashed my X

Hi and welcome to the forum

You are correct - kde4 has its own effects, very similar to compiz.

Lets, get you into a screen first

If you currently dual boot immediately after the bios post you will see the grub list i.e he various boot options. If you don't dual boot you will need to hold down shift to display it. Pick the one containing recovery. You will then be taken to a series of options, one of which should be fix graphics. Pick that - after it has run its course select resume normal boot. That should load kde.

If not, you will probably wind up dumped at a command prompt. Type

dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

hit return

When it has done its stuff, type

startx

If that gets you to a desktop you can then remove anything relating to compiz via the package manager.

HTH

ian

[Yuri sss]

Re: crashed my X

I forget the exact commands I have done but it looks similar to this one and more...
sudo apt-get -y install compiz compiz-gnome compizconfig-settings-manager compiz-fusion-plugins-extra libcompizconfig-backend-gconf

You're missing the compiz Kde packages, for example. Here are the packages I have installed: (click for big image)

[GreyGeek]

Re: crashed my X

.....

dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

....

Unless it has been recently restored, the "-phigh" parameter has been discontinued. And, neither HAL (which has been discontinued) nor its replacement, upstart, create an xorg.conf file that users can edit.

So, as things are right now, either your video works out of the box or you have to use the vendor's Linux binary, if one is available. If you do "locate xorg.conf" in a Konsole you may see something like this:

jerry@sonyvgnfw140e:~$ locate xorg.conf
/xorg.conf.new
/etc/X11/xorg.conf-backup-100820081019
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.failsafe
/usr/lib/X11/xorg.conf.d
/usr/lib/X11/xorg.conf.d/05-evdev.conf
/usr/lib/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-synaptics.conf
/usr/lib/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-vmmouse.conf
/usr/lib/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-wacom.conf
/usr/share/man/man5/xorg.conf.5.gz
jerry@sonyvgnfw140e:~$

The xorg.conf.failsafe contains:

cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.failsafe
Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "fbdev"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

IMO, this is a problem in Kubuntu and similar distros. Not everyone can use xandr, gtf and other tools to create their own xorg.conf file or modify a copy of the failsafe file. Some distros, like PCLinuxOS, DO create an xorg.conf file. If you boot their LiveCD you can use their control center to configure your video the way you want. When you are done you can mount your HD Linux partiton and copy it to /etc/X11. Then reboot.

[askrieger]

Re: crashed my X

@GG:

IMO, this is a problem in Kubuntu and similar distros. Not everyone can use xandr, gtf and other tools to create their own xorg.conf file or modify a copy of the failsafe file.

+1

As far as I know, this "improvement" came in with either Intrepid (which was useless on my primary machine) or Jaunty (where I first encountered it in a Kubuntu KDE4 version that I could actually use). Fortunately, I had retained a hardcopy printout of my Hardy xorg.conf that I could use for a starting point in Jaunty. Now, I'm unlikely to acquire any more hardware.

@rtcbuff: I would suggest: google-linux for "xorg.conf (your-monitor-model-name)", copy the output to generate your own xorg.conf file.

Later: There is some usable general information at this site, and a sample xorg.conf file for an nvidia card here and one for an Intel graphics chip here. But, (a big but), what you REALLY need to know is the characteristics of your monitor

Even later: Take a look at your /var/log/Xorg.0.log file. It will show you what Kubuntu thinks your hardware can do.

Even later than that: Look at this writeup for some explanation and some thoughts on how we got into this mess. As usual, it was with "the best of intentions".

[Snowhog]

Re: crashed my X

Is

sudo Xorg -configure

still functional?

Create A xorg.conf File

[GreyGeek]

Re: crashed my X

Appears to be. I tried in it my Maverick guest OS and it created an xorg.conf there.

[Snowhog]

Re: crashed my X

Nice to know.

[GreyGeek]

Re: crashed my X

Here is what it gave me on my Maverick guest OS. The VirtualBoxGuestAdditions can't load because the Xorg package version is incompatible, so I am stuck with 800x600.

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "X.org Configured"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Files"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi"
FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
FontPath "built-ins"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "record"
Load "dbe"
Load "dri2"
Load "dri"
Load "extmod"
Load "glx"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "Monitor Model"
EndSection

Section "Device"
### Available Driver options are:-
### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz",
### <percent>: "<f>%"
### [arg]: arg optional
#Option "ShadowFB" # [<bool>]
#Option "DefaultRefresh" # [<bool>]
#Option "ModeSetClearScreen" # [<bool>]
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "vesa"
BusID "PCI:0:2:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 1
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 4
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 8
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 15
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 16
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

[Snowhog]

Re: crashed my X

What if you add a modeline to the file?

The XFree86 Modeline Generator