[svlug] Re: Linux Challenge- PLEASE HELP Up and Running for a NOVICE in 9Hours?? SVLUG

[Ray Olszewski]

I am a bit perplexed by this posting. I and many others have, for the past
few hours, been offering suggestions as to how you might get X11 running on
your system. Did you receive those messages? Some of them asked for
information, or suggested things you could try and report back on. Have you
done any of that? What were the results?

If for some reason you haven't been receiving the earlier messages, then
here is what I suggest you try.

1. Put either of the problem video cards back into your system and boot
Linux. (I asume you have Linux working in command-line mode, since your
initial message was about X11 problems.)

2. See if you have the files XF86_SVGA and XF86_VGA16 in your Linux
partition. I think they will be in /usr/X11/bin (that is where they are on
my system), but Red Hat may be different, so if you don't find them in this
location, do a 

find / -name XF86*

to track them down.

3a. If you don't have these files on your system, do whatever it is one does
in Red Hat to add packages and add these files (they are X11 servers, not
part of the Metro-X package).

3b. If you do have these files on your system, note where they are.

4. Run xf86config (also probably in /usr/X11/bin) and answer as follows:

        4.1. For the mouse, do whatever is appropriate to your setup (BTW,
for X, a mouse is even more essential than under WinXX or MacOS).

        4.2. For the video hsync rate, choose whatever your monitor manual
says. If you don't have a monitor manual, you can try choosing the lowest
listed choice for the resolution your monitor offers. [WARNING -- no
guarantee here. I've done this safely, but I can't promise that this will
not damage your monitor. The right solution is to get the number, either
from the manual, the Web, or someplace. Proceed at your own risk.]

        4.3. For the vsync rate, choose whatever your monitor manual says.
If you don't have a monitor manual, you can try choosing the smallest range
available (in my menu, 50-70). [WARNING -- no guarantee here. I've done this
safely, but I can't promise that this will not damage your monitor. The
right solution is to get the number, either from the manual, the Web, or
someplace. Proceed at your own risk.]

        4.4. For the server to use,choose XF86_SVGA. (Unless this is your
second time through step 4. See below.)

        4.5. Do set the symlink.

        4.6. I hope you know the RAM on your video card; surely the manual
isn't *that* uninformative. If not, here you need an equivalent to
SuperProbe to get that information.

        4.7. Skip RAMDAC and clock, but do run X -probeonly. Note the
warnings the program displays, though.

        4.8. For whatever color depth you will be using, use only the 640 *
480 resolution (for now).

        4.9. Save the file.

5. Now run startx with this command:

        startx >saveerrors 2>&1

6a. If X11 starts, you're set (in principle -- you will probably want a
better resolution than 640 * 480 -- but the first exercise is simply to get
it working in *some* mode). Let us know that this is working, and we can
suggest what to do next -- though at that point we'll need to know the specs
on the monitor.

6b. If X11 doesn't start, go back to step 4 and re-run xf86config, this time
specifying XF86_VGA16 in step 4.4. Then in step 5, modify the line to read

        startx >saveerrors2 2>&1

6c. If this is your second time through, and X11 still didn't start, then we
need to look at the files saveerrors and saveerrors2. If they are brief, you
might include them in a posting to the svlug list (as quoted text, NOT as
attachments, please -- if they are too long to quote, they are too long for
the list). If they are long, that is probably a burden to the list, but feel
free to e-mail them directly to me if you like.

At 06:08 PM 8/5/98 EDT, ShaheenSEI at aol.com wrote:
>
>Here is the Challenge
>
>It's 3:00PM here in Mountain View
>
>I want to get a Working Linux System going by Midnight 12:00PM in  my office
>next NETSCAPE
>
>I am willing to purchase new Video Card
>I have the CPU Mother Board( IWILL 233MHZ PII with 128K RAM) and Modem(
>Creative Labs 56K) Card, CDROM(it worked with RedHat but NO  X and No Modem),
>HD(7GB)
>
>
>WHAT SHALL I BUY - DO WHAT NOW
>
>ADVISE ME
>
>Your Reward $100 WORTH of PIZZA - Tell me WHERE
>Or $150 dollars for any one who can get MSQL, JAVA and APPACHE AND MODEM
>RUNNING ON MY MACHINE
>
>
>DIFFERENT CHALLENGE NEXT WEEK ( GETTEING RTLINUX RUNNING IN 24HOURS- are you
>ready for this RAFFAEL????)
>Shaheen
------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"---
Ray Olszewski                                        -- Han Solo
762 Garland Drive
Palo Alto, CA  94303-3603
650.321.3561 voice                               ray at comarre.com
650.322.1209 fax                 http://www.comarre.com/ray.html
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