(Dapper) Totally bizarre GDM error

[Darryl Clarke]

On 26/03/06, Stephen R Laniel <steve at laniels.org> wrote:
> When I start GDM or KDM, my screen looks like a TV test
> pattern: I can't see anything on the screen, including the
> text that I'm typing. But I can type text, and the commands
> go through fine. If I then switch to a virtual terminal and
> type "sudo /etc/init.d/kdm start" (while GDM is running),
> then switch back to the virtual terminal in which GDM is
> running, everything is fine and I can compute like a normal
> person. This *despite* the fact that KDM doesn't actually
> run: it rightly gives me the error that it can't run because
> a window manager is already running.
>
> So as far as I can tell, nothing really changes, but
> everything gets fixed. Any idea what this could be all
> about?

I have been experiencing a problem like this on my laptop for the last
few days or so, I just haven't gotten around to a bug report.

When it first boots up the GDM screen is skewed and like a scarmbled
tv signal.  If I switch to TTY1 and then back to GDM again it resets
the video and works fine.

I'm not seeing any abnormal messages in my logs, and I can't quite
place it when it started (maybe tuesday or wednesday?)

It has an ATI Radeon chipset, if that matters.  I have not experienced
this issue with my nVidia based boxes.

--
~ Darryl  ~ smartssa at gmail.com
~ http://darrylclarke.com