problem starting X (was: Re: Problems with bootable cd's)

[Eberhard Roloff]

Hi Rene,

On Wed, 16 Aug 2006 11:35:54 +0200
Rene Richard van Hassel <r.r.v.hassel at tue.nl> wrote:

> Hoi Eberhard,
> 
> 
> indeed I have thrown them away. The reason for this is, that 
> on another place, I'm working fine with Ubuntu, also my laptop
> is working without problems under Ubuntu and the installations
> on these machines was without any problems.
great! imho this indicates, that the cd(s) are ok, while some
computers may have problems with correctly reading and/or
booting from it. 

[...]
> >From the Redhat installation, I have nothing kept as
> >reference,
> only the home-directory is put on another disk. Indeed 
> stupid, but I thought that the installation should be simple,
> just as it had gone on the other PC and laptop.

You have any reason to be happy. Since your home directory
usually contains all your relevant userdata and (possibly)
your userspecific application settings. 

So you can always install
anything from scratch without loosing your /home/username. 

> 
> X is not going well: I mean that I think that the driver of
> my graphic card is not found, so the xserver is not doing what
> it has to do. Some blus screen with $$$$ and other things, but
> not what I expected.
> 
> Problem here is that I have no idea how to get contact with 
> internet with the line-commands. (I have no screen, where I
> can click or otherwise.)
That could be done and it is not difficult, but it is dependant
on how you connect to the internet, i.e via network, modem, isdn,
dsl, wlan.....you name it.

As your CD apparently now is working, but Internet is not, imho
it would be much easier for you to install from there. 

Use "sudo aptitude", which is a sort of graphical
tool for the text console that simplifies package management.
Imho it is sort of awkward to use for "graphical
people", but it surely does a great job, i.e it resolves any
dependancy issues nicely for you and much more.

Note: The driver install (if it works ok) will not be all there
is to do. The next step will be to make your X11
aware that you want to use the nv driver. This is easy:
"sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg" and simpy follow the
prompts on the screens, let anything as it is until you choose
the X "driver", which is "nv" or "nvidia", I believe. 
The only other thing you should take care of is your screen
resolution and the monitor data, if your monitor is not
automatically recognized via DPMS.
> 
> What is the nvidia driver? I will try your suggestion at the
> evening, now I cann't do it.

You said, you have a geforce graphics Adapter in your Computer.
Btw: "lspci" or maybe "lspci | grep VGA" will tell you some
things about what Linux thinks of the hardware you are using. 

Now, Nvidia is the (original) manufacturer of Geforce Cards.
There are others manufacturing Geforce cards, ex. MSI, but all
of them use the Nvidia "Geforce" chipset and basic design.
Consequently, when having a "Geforce" Card, you could try to use
the Nvidia Driver and you will be successfull in most cases.

If not, there are always other possibilities like 
framebuffer, vesa..., but I suggest to do one thing
after the other. 

> 
> I'm using latex very much and all kind off packages of it,
> these I have to find and install.

No problem, (nearly) anything of this is on Ubuntu.
Anything else is easily availble on the web.

> 
> There are also other programs I have to search and install.
> Till now this was going easy, so I hope at home also???

sure, keep up the good work
> 
> Thanks for your reaction,
> 
you're wellcome. Also I regret all the hassle that you are
having. As soon as X and Internet will be working, my guess is
you will be amazed how much easier Ubuntu actually is, even if
the beginning of your love with ubuntu showed
some, hmmm... room for improvement. ;-)))

kind regards
Eberhard