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Solved: Fatal server error: no screens found WTF?

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I am installing a new debian system with sarge.
Installed xdm, xserver-commonand xserver-xfree86 and it doesn't work

Error messages are:
1) something about missing symboles for glcore

2) (EE) no devices detected

3) fatal server error:no screens found

WTF is going on?
I have been through /etc/X11/XFConfig86-4 and section "screen" is defined.
I have also compared it to another debian system and everythign is close. It is a nvidia videao card and the faulty machine is a S3 86c368 TNT3D/2X card.

Nothing wrong with hardware. It was running RH on a scsi hard disk, which I have dropped out for debian sarge on a ide hardware

I find this really depressing that after all these years a simple X installation is still a fucking frustrating exercise for a basic video card and what is worse, the whole x system is so much more complicated. It was so much easier with a simpler system and calculating modelines.

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It sounds like you haven't

Submitted by tim on Sun, 2006-07-30 13:06.

It sounds like you haven't fully installed x yet.
Try this:
aptitude install discover mdetect
(these packages might help detect your screen settings and mouse)
Next:
aptitude install x-window-system-core x-window-system xterm

Let us know how this works out.

»

No difference

Submitted by terryc200607 on Mon, 2006-07-31 07:59.

Thanks for the idea, but this made no difference (apart from stuff like xprint which I removed).

Still getting the same (EE) no devices detected, etc even though there are no real errors in /var/log/XFree86.0.log
Only a few missing sysmboles for GL and speedo module.

mdetect doesn't see either mouse[1], although the log shows is recognising the mouse.

[1] I have one on /dev/ttys0 and /dev/psaux. The serial is neccessary for the KVM to work and my wife prefers optical mice which are only available on ps/2.
]

»

Where do you set the window manager?

Submitted by terryc200607 on Sun, 2006-07-30 18:48.

I think I've made some progress, maybe, hmmm

From another machine, this "(EE) no devices detected" probably means that the PCI bus number is wrong, i.e. whomever was responsible for programming X hasn't a fscking clue about hexadecimal.

lspci list the video card as 00:00:b.0,
and I know that b(in hexadecimal) = 11(base ten), but I'd never thought that I would actually have toenter pci:0:0:11 for the BUSID. Yep, that was it (on another machine)
It sort-of rejected PCI:0:0:b i.e ditn't say it was wrong, but would only work on PCI:0:0:11.

Next problem is where do I set the window manger?
I do not want gnome or kde, but want lighter stuff and with all the apt-get install/remove, X is totally borked.

»

You can always install gdm

Submitted by pinniped on Mon, 2006-07-31 08:11.

You can always install gdm or kdm and fluxbox, blackbox, or if you want a little more bloat (but still lean compared to Gnome/KDE) xfce4.

I'd use gdm or kdm because they allow you to easily select your window manager; if you already know what manager you want to use then the usual 'xdm' will be fine - it's just more of a nuisance to set it up.

I don't understand what you said in your earlier post. Does the machine you're having trouble with have an NVidia card? If so, you need to fetch and compile the appropriate NVidia driver for your kernel. With kernel 2.6 you really only have one choice. Now since kernel 2.6.16, there have been more changes with drivers and the NVidia code will not build properly without a magic official-unofficial patch which is very well hidden on the NVidia website. Unless their driver code has since been patched, you may have to hunt down the patch.

»

xdm, etc

Submitted by terryc200607 on Mon, 2006-07-31 08:53.

Funnily,the machine I am not having trouble with does have a nvidia card and I vaguely remember it took a bit of setting up.

I am actually having troubles with two machines, one is critical, the other is just a fiddle machine. Both have S3 video card/chips (368 & 968).

I am using xdm because the other seem to drag in a whole pile of other crap. Unfortunately the problem is not yet the window manager.

I still can not get X running properly on the critical machine (S3 968). I just get a cryptic (EE) no devices found and fatal server error: no screens found.

I have been through /var/log/Xfree86.0.log on both faulty machines and nothing stands out to indicate a cause.

Maybe, "the device" is the mouse as mdetect doesn't list either of them (/dev/ttyS0 and /dev/psaux), although this isn't clear as there is no obvious mouse error message.

The non-critical machine (inbuilt S3 368) has gotten to the stage of the grey mesh, but no functioning mouse either (cursor is there). This machine (P100, 132MB Ram) might just be incapable of X.

Unfortunately, tonight I thought of camparing working XF86Config-4 and /var/log/XFree86.0.log with non-working, but it seems that my working machine (the nvidias one) doesn't produce a X log. Don't ask me when that was configured as this machine evolved from potato.

Actually, the critical machine is Sarge 2.4.27 and the non-critical is Woody./Sarge 2.2.20. I will worry about the 2.6 kernels when I get this sorted.

I find it very frustrating because there is no useful, practical documentation in debian. There is a pile of dated crap, but often that just confuses the issue.

e.g You talk about various combinations of stuff to provide X, but no are these various ways listed. I am talking about where you actually need xdm/gdm/kdm and/or a window manager, etc.

»

Is gpm installed?

Submitted by Matt on Mon, 2006-07-31 20:16.

I'm trying to remember setting up mice with 2.2 and 2.4 kernels. I think at times /dev/psaux worked for the mouse device, but at least once I had trouble with getting the mouse working. One possibility is that gpm (not gdm) is installed, then you have to use /dev/gpmdata (or something like that).

If you have the wrong mouse driver, sometimes X won't start, sometimes it starts but the mouse won't move, and sometimes it starts and the mouse moves wildly all over the screen. Funny that a little thing like the mouse can cause so much havoc.

Finally, I second MagnusBerg's request to post your XF86Config (working and non-working).

»

gpmdata

Submitted by terryc200607 on Tue, 2006-08-01 03:59.

I know about gpmdata and the funnies it can causes and usually when I am problem solving, I take it out/stop it before I startsx/xdm, then put it back in.

For the critical machine, gpmdata will not be running anyway as the user (swmbo) never does a terminal. Most of the terminal is across the network if I ssh in to fix something (which is the reason I am attempting to ditch RH.

ATM, the non critical machine is having mouse problems and doesn't recognise mouse movements.

mdetect correctly reports /dev/psaux & ImPS/2, until I also plugged in a logitech serial mouse and it reported /dev/psaux and Intellimouse i.e mangled the two mice settings (this is different to the critical machine, which also has two mice)

Anyway, I will work on getting stuff set up so I can post the config stuff

»

Another good step

Submitted by MagnusBerg on Mon, 2006-07-31 11:42.

Error messages are:
1) something about missing symboles for glcore
2) (EE) no devices detected
3) fatal server error:no screens found

1) remove the glcore line in XF86Config

2+3) If you have a running RH system why don't you copy that XF86Config to the Debian system or at least compare the two?

Another good step is to show us you thing, your XF86Config.

»

agt

Submitted by terryc200607 on Tue, 2006-08-01 04:07.

a)I will try removing the glcore and see what happens.

b)err, I no longer have a working RH system. The idea was to;

1) remove a scsi harddisk that has way outlasted all the other brought in that batch, before it died,

2)get rid of evolution that SO/swmbo was using and

3) give her a working cdplayer (it went into spawn storms and locked up the system).

I do have the hard disk and have thought about mounting it on another machine to have a look at. Of course, it is only useful if it is a Config-4.

Anyway, I will see what I can post. (it doesn't help that this machine has different user numbers to the problem machines)

the problem should not be in the

»

Well, unfortunately there

Submitted by pinniped on Tue, 2006-08-01 07:07.

Well, unfortunately there are a gazillion "S3" chips. Could you post the VendorID:ProductID for your graphics chip? (Use lspci -v and lspci -n to get the info.)

Also post your X configuration file - the "No Screens" is a bit vague and I can think of at least two conditions which would cause that message to pop up.

No mouse on XF86-4.1 and later gives the "No Core Pointer" message. I think in XF86-3.8 it was "No pointer detected". Not 100% sure about that but you can be sure the log will say something about "pointer" or "mouse" if the problem were the mouse.

Mmm... think think think. With S3 you can often comment out the GLCore and DRI because these are really non-existsent and even if you have the correct S3 driver GLCore will not be able to find a lot of the symbols it expects. HOWEVER, even in that case, if you have a new enough XF86 and MesaGL, you can still load the GLCore. (Whoopee - 2 and 3D graphics done by your CPU - that'll really cripple the machine.)

I'm not surprised that Debian hasn't got good docs covering all video setups - just far too many chips out there. Worse still, X is an abominable mess of code. I've only ever met two people who knew X inside out - and they're really wierd. Naturally their attitude was "documentation? Everyone knows that you just twiddle the fitzyjingle, so why would I waste my time writing about that?"

Another possible problem:
If the HD you plugged in is set up to run an NVidia card, you may have the NVidia versions of some X drivers rather than the original X versions. You need to reinstall the appropriate files (or else you do get that "missing symbol" stuff). I normally have the opposite problem: when I update my version of X the NVidia drivers get nuked and I have to reinstall the NVidia stuff.

»

lspci output

Submitted by terryc200607 on Tue, 2006-08-01 11:25.

Okay, here is relevant lspci -v
..................
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: S3 Inc. 86c368 [Trio 3D/2X] (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
Subsystem: S3 Inc. Trio3D/2X
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64
Memory at dc000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [=64M]
Expansion ROM at e7ff0000 [disabled] [=64K]
Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 1
Capabilities: [80] AGP version 1.0
................................

and here is rfelevant bit from lspci -n

.................................
0000:01:00.0 0300: 5333:8a13 (rev 02)
....................................

and here is something from end of xdm.log that I noticed (trying to find anything that gives a clue.

.....................................
This can be found in the log file "/var/log/XFree86.0.log".
Please report problems to .

Tue Aug 1 21:35:38 2006 xdm error (pid 1615): IO Error in XOpenDisplay
Tue Aug 1 21:35:38 2006 xdm error (pid 1606): display :0 cannot be opened
Tue Aug 1 21:35:38 2006 xdm error (pid 1606): display :0 is being disabled
Tue Aug 1 21:35:38 2006 xdm info (pid 1606): exiting
.........................................................

And now that I have nfs stuff set up okay (great relief), here is the XFConfig-4 that I am trying to get working
..................................................
# XF86Config-4 (XFree86 X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the XF86Config-4 manual page.
# (Type "man XF86Config-4" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xfree86 package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xfree86
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following commands as root:
#
# cp /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 /etc/X11/XF86Config-4.custom
# md5sum /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 >/var/lib/xfree86/XF86Config-4.md5sum
# dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86

Section "Files"
# FontPath "unix/:7100" # local font server
# if the local font server has problems, we can fall back on these
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
# FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
# FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/CID"
# FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi"
EndSection

Section "Module"
# Load "GLcore"
Load "bitmap"
Load "dbe"
Load "ddc"
# Load "dri"
Load "extmod"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
Load "int10"
Load "record"
# Load "speedo"
Load "type1"
Load "vbe"
# Load "xtt"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "keyboard"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"
Option "XkbModel" "pc104"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
Option "XkbVariant" "pc104"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
# Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "S3 86c368"
Driver "s3"
BusID "PCI:01:00:00"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "LG 795SC"
HorizSync 30-100
VertRefresh 50-200
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "S3 86c368"
Monitor "LG 795SC"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 1
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen"
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
InputDevice "Generic Mouse"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection
................................................
damselfly:/files/errors#

There is no nVidia involved in this machine (before or now)

Funnily, I've tried commenting out the load GLcode stuff and it still gets loaded, i.e. errors still in /var/log/XFFree86.0.log. Even when I totally removed module GLcore from the config (not just commented it out, it keeps posting libglcore errors.

I do notice how it says S3 968, where as my S3 is 368.

Thanks

»

Changing the name is all you need to do.

Submitted by MagnusBerg on Tue, 2006-08-01 08:30.

"Of course, it is only useful if it is a Config-4."

It's just the name that differs between XF86Config, XF86Config-4 and xorg.conf. Changing the name is all you need to do to get it work.

But somethere between the versions they change so you can't use uppercase in the drivers name like:
Driver "Keyboard"
Driver "Mouse"
it must be
Driver "keyboard"
Driver "mouse"

»

Bingo - it is an S3 Virge, not just S3

Submitted by terryc200607 on Tue, 2006-08-01 12:20.

I was looking through my stock of old PCI cards to see if I had anything else that I might use instead of this problematic card when I noticed that one of the cards was marked S3 trio virge or something similar and that lead me to wonder if this card actually required the virge driver.

Also, the log said S3 968, which is a really older chip.

Tried it and the X screen came up.

Now all I have to do is sort out why I have no mouse, but as it is 3am, that can wait until daylight hours.

I thought I had tried the virge driver. Perhaps I had tried it on the older machine and not this one.

I think I might talk swmbo into investing in a newer video card and relegate this one to the emergency spares.

Thanks everyone for help to date.

»

Double mouse entry caused mouse problems

Submitted by terryc200607 on Tue, 2006-08-01 22:41.

Finally /var/log/XFree86.0.log made mention of the mouse such that it acknowledged that it was seeing it. something like, nope this is a 3 button mouse, so I don't have to emulate it.

But still the mouse didn't work. Finally, I wondered why there was two mouse sections ; "Configured Mouse" and "Generic Mouse". There must be a bug in dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86 that puts both these in.

Generic mouse was second and every time it pointed to /dev/input/mice and said it didn't wor. So, I commented it out, and Viola, the mouse now works. This was on both machines.

Will submit this as a bug.

Thanks folks for all your assistance.

(Dare I now try to use the spare nVidia 32Mb AGP card Ihat I found in my stash? Naah.

»

Two or more mice in XF86Config-4

Submitted by gavinnz on Thu, 2006-08-03 20:45.

No you can have two or more mice configured in the XF86Config-4 file. Not sure if they may point to the same device simultaneously though.
The corepointer option determines which mouse is the primary and one must be.

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "BTC"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"...
...

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Labtechmouse"
Driver "mouse"
...

and the "ServerLayout" section determines what is actually used on X startup.

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "ScreenCRT"
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "BTC"
# InputDevice "Labtechmouse"
# InputDevice "Nosmouse"
EndSection

It is usually easier to comment out all but one mouse InputDevice Section till the server starts correctly though. Then play further if required.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Another handy option (that maybe should be default behaviour) is the server flags section, just add this to XF86Config-4 to allow it to start even if the mouse fails.

Section "ServerFlags"
Option "AllowMouseOpenFail" "true"
EndSection

Are we just a blip in history, where the working class had too much access to information and freedom?

»

2 mice thanks

Submitted by terryc200607 on Thu, 2006-08-03 23:26.

Thanks for that info. Will keep it in mind. i.e. it is possible. most probably useful if I ever get a digitiser connected.

In my case, both mice were listed in the server section, so given your information, that was probably the reason.

»

Upgrade

Submitted by bryanbankester on Sun, 2008-01-20 13:50.

This happened to me after configuring everything correctly. But after upgrading xserver-xorg-core, problem solved (for me, at least).

»

Re: Solved: Fatal server error: no screens found WTF?

Submitted by Novatian on Tue, 2008-05-20 10:33.

No screen after installing Lenny, after using lspci I got this among other info.

"01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: s3 Inc 86c386 [Trio3D/2X] (rev 01)"

Could anyone here advise me on a correction, and how to apply it?

Need I search for a driver, or alter a command...?

The computer apart from this one I am using, has no net connection.

»
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