ubuntu, the big X

[mmills]

I installed ubuntu, on a HP Pavilion N5340, at first the no root thing threw me off, but i have but a slight issue, I have a X in the middle of my screen, i thought I could create a user to see if it was my original user's issue, but no, I still have the X, I have tried all different distro's, my wife is a windows person, im learning to program in c+ so linux being free and virus free and programs are mostly free, I like, im not sure how I feel about ubuntu just yet.
Im a gnome person, so......

any suggestions?

[rbrimhall]

Originally posted by mmills
I installed ubuntu, on a HP Pavilion N5340, at first the no root thing threw me off, but i have but a slight issue, I have a X in the middle of my screen, i thought I could create a user to see if it was my original user's issue, but no, I still have the X, I have tried all different distro's, my wife is a windows person, im learning to program in c+ so linux being free and virus free and programs are mostly free, I like, im not sure how I feel about ubuntu just yet.
Im a gnome person, so......

any suggestions?

Search the mailing lists... I remember several mails from people having the exact same issue. Not sure if any got it resolved but it's a good start at least.

[mrBen]

I'm sure I have seen a similar thread somewhere - have a quick search here, or talk to the Ubuntu guys directly and you might get a quick fix.

[mmills]

I posted this question at the ubuntu forum and was given this page http://www.ubuntulinux.org/support/documentation/faq/hwcursor
but it really didnt help much, when looking for the info in x11 I didnt find any similar text.........

so im still at a loss......

[mrBen]

Originally posted by mmills
I posted this question at the ubuntu forum and was given this page http://www.ubuntulinux.org/support/documentation/faq/hwcursor
but it really didnt help much, when looking for the info in x11 I didnt find any similar text.........

so im still at a loss......

You should have at least one "Device" section in your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file - just add the text in like they say.

[mmills]

where would I add the text?

Section "Device"
Identifier "S3 Inc. 86C270-294 Savage/IX-MV"
Driver "savage"
BusID "PCI:1:1:0"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Generic Monitor"
HorizSync 28-49
VertRefresh 43-72
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "S3 Inc. 86C270-294 Savage/IX-MV"
Monitor "Generic Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 1
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection

and sice I cant login as root to changer this info, I do this through bash?

I need some help with this.......

[mrBen]

Here:


Section "Device"
Identifier "S3 Inc. 86C270-294 Savage/IX-MV"
Driver "savage"
BusID "PCI:1:1:0"
Option "HWCursor" "false"
EndSection

.....snip......

[blight]

I have that exact same problem as well as a hp pavilion note book.
i posted same question (http://justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=134721&highlight=ubuntu+x+wont+leave)

The simple solution for me, I have found, is simply open any window (gnome terminal, firefox, whatever) and move it or resize it.
Imedatly the X disapears from the screen. I wish there was a permanant solution but I have yet to find one.

I hope this helps.

[Rinias]

Originally posted by mmills
where would I add the text?
...
and sice I cant login as root to changer this info, I do this through bash?

I need some help with this.......

OK!

What I heard as a simple fix for this (in the main Ubuntu thread here) is that you open the Root Console window (from where you can edit the document, I suppose). The other thing you can do is type 'passwd' (w/o the quotes) and give root a password so that you can su like usual later.

Good luck!

[mmills]

can someone give me some help on root terminal commands to edit this file? I have tried looking up help through my help files in my system and there is no information on how to do this.


rinias

What I heard as a simple fix for this (in the main Ubuntu thread here) is that you open the Root Console window (from where you can edit the document, I suppose). The other thing you can do is type 'passwd' (w/o the quotes) and give root a password so that you can su like usual later.

tried that and it asked me to change my passwd....

edit: something I just noticed, my X is gone but it was there 5 mintes ago.......

[mrBen]

If you want to do something as "root" simply type sudo before it.

So, in the case above, do this:

sudo vi /etc/X11/XF86Config-4

And it will open vi as root.

Alternatively, you can do it from the root console, which is in the menu.

[mmills]

I typed that in and now I have this
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im almost afraid to close that terminal, what the heck did i do wrong?

[mmills]

I added the string

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"
# paths to defoma fonts
FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/CID"
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 "v4l"
Load "vbe"
Load "xtt"
EndSection

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

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "S3 Inc. 86C270-294 Savage/IX-MV"
Driver "savage"
BusID "PCI:1:1:0"
Option "HWCursor" "false"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Generic Monitor"
HorizSync 28-49
VertRefresh 43-72
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "S3 Inc. 86C270-294 Savage/IX-MV"
Monitor "Generic Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 1
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection

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

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection

when I got the

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I rebooted my pc and it never changed, I did this via root terminal

[mmills]

I tried it again and it says


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"/etc/X11/XF86Confi" [New File]

[mrBen]

OK - if you've never used vi, then this is probably not the time to start.......

Pick your favourite text editor, but instead of running it from the menu, run from the root window. Then load up the file, and edit that 1 line, and save it. Then you should just need to restart X, not the whole machine.

Check the filename too - it may be called something else, but it will be in /etc/X11/

[mmills]

i typed in:

sudo vi /etc/X11/XF86Config-4

and now I got this message:


E325: ATTENTION
Found a swap file by the name "/etc/X11/.XF86Config-4.swp"
owned by: root dated: Fri Nov 12 01:18:33 2004
file name: /etc/X11/XF86Config-4
modified: YES
user name: root host name: ubuntu-laptop
process ID: 3968
While opening file "/etc/X11/XF86Config-4"
dated: Thu Nov 11 17:28:38 2004

(1) Another program may be editing the same file.
If this is the case, be careful not to end up with two
different instances of the same file when making changes.
Quit, or continue with caution.

(2) An edit session for this file crashed.
If this is the case, use ":recover" or "vim -r /etc/X11/XF86Config-4"
to recover the changes (see ":help recovery").
If you did this already, delete the swap file "/etc/X11/.XF86Config-4.swp"
to avoid this message.

Swap file "/etc/X11/.XF86Config-4.swp" already exists!
[O]pen Read-Only, (E)dit anyway, (R)ecover, (Q)uit, (A)bort, (D)elete it:

I type in E, but it wont let me edit the file and save it.....

[nouse66]

first of all... don't use vi. vi is a great text editor but it takes time to learn and get used to. and it's REALLY weird the first time you look at it with no experience.

from the command line try nano or pico for a text editor (nano i think will be the one you'll have on ubuntu).

or you can just run gedit and get a graphical text editor similar to notepad/wordpad in windows.

/etc/X11/XF86Config-4 is a common location and name of the x config file but it can change and i'm not in front of my computer that has ubuntu to check it out.

a lot of the time it will just be /etc/X11/XF86Config

if not go into the /etc/X11/ directory and see whats there...

[mmills]

thanks for the help, I am still very new to the functions of linux, as far as commands and that sort of stuff, I have a x86config.custom file it doesnt seem to be a problem and the X is gone, thanks a bunch mrben.

[madcompnerd]

Try using "pico" or "nano" instead of "vi." Vi is a bit difficult to learn with no prior knowledge; besides it's massive overkill for editing conf files (unless you have a really killer PC -- READ: faster than 500MHz).

[mmills]

well im not sure if its overkill I am only running 796Mhz with 256 and 8mb video.......P3laptop.


but thanks for all the help guys!