[Lubuntu] Some PC's or LTSP clients stall during boot at a blank, black screen

[Ioannis Vranos]

On Sat, Dec 8, 2012 at 11:17 PM, John Hupp <lubuntu at prpcompany.com> wrote:
> It was a slow-dawning realization for me as I continued to research this,
> but I too was concluding that I needed various xserver-xorg-video-*
> packages.  However, checking just now, I find that I already have the
> meta-package installed (xserver-xorg-video-all) that installs their whole
> suite.

OK for these. Regarding your issues, I think that if you also post a
question in Ubuntu users mailing list
-https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users, and in Ubuntu
Forums: http://ubuntuforums.org, you will get more answers, than
posting in Lubuntu users mailing list only.



> I see that the binary drivers fglrx and fglrx-updates are available but not
> installed.

Those are for AMD/ATI graphics cards.


> So perhaps those are an option here, though I may have read
> somewhere that there may be some complications uninstalling those if they
> don't provide a solution.
>
> I'm now wondering how I can troubleshoot what xorg is doing.  On the server,
> I have /var/log/Xorg.0.log to look at, for instance, and though I don't know
> how to read that very well, I can tell that it selects a certain set of
> drivers to try to load, and provides various kinds of information about how
> they loaded (or didn't) and with what settings.  But in this case with LTSP
> clients, though I have syslog messages being forwarded from the clients to
> the server, that does not include the xorg log messages, right?  If that's
> so, then perhaps I would want to ssh in to /var/log/Xorg.0.log on the
> client, but my current recollection is that ssh to the client fails when I
> get these stalled startups.  I think I need to double-check that.

I have no experience of LTSP clients, so someone else may know more
about your questions.



> Can I force usage of a certain driver?  I read that this was supported with
> xorg.conf, but that does not exist by default now, and I think Xorg uses an
> automated configuration system called KMS, about which I know next to
> nothing.  But perhaps a configuration via xorg.conf is still
> respected/supported?

As far as I know, until recently, there were two kinds of drivers.
Kernel ones, and X.Org ones. I think there is an effort to eliminate
the second ones, however I do not keep up with all free software
developments.

As far as I know, X.Org is now automatic (I do not know whether it has
anything to do with KMS), however it still respects xorg.conf if it
exists.

For example, if you install nvidia proprietary driver (nvidia-current
and nvidia-settings packages), or amd (fglrx and fglrx-amdcccle
packages), you should run nvidia-xconfig, and aticonfig --initial
after instalation, respectively. These programs create a necessary
xorg.conf for these drivers to work optimally.

I do not know if these drivers include X.Org drivers, or only kernel
drivers (modules).


-- 
Ioannis Vranos

http://cppsoftware.binhoster.com