RH 8.0 X server reconfig problem...

Andrew Mathews andrew_mathews
Mon May 17 11:38:58 PDT 2004


tom wrote:
> Greets all.  Apologies to all for long message.
> 
> What is the next step to trouble shoot a frozen
> keyboard and mouse when running a Xserver?
> 
> Do I modify in the Xserver by hand, or is there
> another service I must deactivate, or do I modify
> a init script to correct this?
> 
> I tried using xf86config, but RH no longer 
> follows the XFREE86 project standard configuration
> file system.  The scripts there fail miserably, and
> are broken.
> 
> So I'm a little stuck. Here's my tale thus far;
> 
> Installation:
> 
> Downloaded RH8.0, confirmed MD5 checksum for all
> iso's.  Burned the 5 iso's.
> 
> A simple installation with RH 8.0 without problems,
> all hardware detected, recommended programs installed.
> 
> Performed a custom install, asked for KDE and Gnome
> ( that I can tell ) and whatever else is available on
> the iso's.
> 
> Asked ext2 partitions all around,  /tmp /var /home /boot,
> generous sized swap file and / directory.

I'd highly recommend using a journaling file system, either ext3, 
reiser, or best of all XFS. An iso image of the RH 8.0 XFS installer is 
available from SGI at: 
ftp://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/Release-1.2pre1/installer/forRH-8.0-SGI-XFS-1.2pre1.iso

> GUI:
> 
> Problem: the X server locks up the mouse and keyboard
>  on GUI activation.  From CLI, type in
> 
> ]$ startx

IIRC, startx only starts the classic X-Windows. To start Gnome use 
gnome-session, or for KDE use startkde. Better yet, use /sbin/telinit 5 
to start the desktop manager.

> Immediately Keyboard and Mouse dies. I can see GUI,
> with all the icons, tabs, buttons, clock, mouse cursor, 
> but there my experience with RH 8.0 stops.
> 
> Tapping CAPSLOCK on keyboard DOES NOT work, keyboard
> is completely dead.  Lamp indicators stop to function,
> including NUM-LOCK, SCROLL-LOCK.
> 


Is it USB or PS/2?


> 
> Only way to get out of frozen GUI screen is to perform
> power down. Literally
> 
> As long as I remain using the CLI, everything works
> okay.  However, I would like to try out the GUI.
> 
> 
> Novice conclusion:
> To me, my problem looks like the X server configuration.
> 
> However, just to be sure, I asked on alt.linux.redhat 
> about this, and someone mentioned there
> that the power management on RH 8.0 was to blame.
> 
> So I though maybe turning off power management
> would help. Tried to turn off using 'ntsysv',
> but this configuration tool fails to turn 'apmd' off.
> 
> Attempting to use 'redhat-configure-services'
> fails with return line calls from CLI with...
> 
> Traceback ( most recent call last ):
>   File "/usr/share/redhat-configure-services/serviceconf.py",
>          line 24, in ? import gtk
>  
>   File "/usr/lib/python2.2/site-packages/rhpl/__init__.py",
>          line 19, in ? # dummy __init__ so that things work
> 
>   RuntimeError: could not open display
> 
> 'Gtk-Warning **: cannot open display:'
> 
> ---
> 
> Obviously, the new 'redhat-config-'s' are using GUI.

RedHat uses the chkconfig tool for command line service management. Do a 
chkconfig --list to see the service name and runlevel of the services. 
To shut off apmd use chkconfig --level 12345 apmd off This will turn off 
apmd on all runlevels (12345) Also do a chkconfig --list | grep 3:on to 
look at any others you may deem necessary to turn off, and substitute 
5:on for GUI level services.

> Tried 'redhat-config-xfree86' again same lock up, or if
> it doesn't lock up, I get the screen, the prompt for the
> display size, pixel width, fonts,
> 
> ..but then the keyboard and mouse don't work, and I'm
> rebooting again.
<snip>
 From a RH 8.0 XF86Config file:
# File generated by anaconda.

Section "ServerLayout"
         Identifier     "Anaconda Configured"
         Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
         InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
         InputDevice     "Mouse1" "SendCoreEvents"
         InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Files"

# The location of the RGB database.  Note, this is the name of the
# file minus the extension (like ".txt" or ".db").  There is normally
# no need to change the default.

     RgbPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"

# Multiple FontPath entries are allowed (they are concatenated together)
# By default, Red Hat 6.0 and later now use a font server independent of
# the X server to render fonts.

     FontPath   "unix/:7100"

EndSection

Section "Module"
         Load  "dbe"
         Load  "extmod"
         Load  "fbdevhw"
         Load  "dri"
         Load  "glx"
         Load  "record"
         Load  "freetype"
         Load  "type1"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
         Identifier  "Keyboard0"
         Driver      "keyboard"

#       Option  "AutoRepeat"    "500 5"

# when using XQUEUE, comment out the above line, and uncomment the
# following line
#       Option  "Protocol"      "Xqueue"

# Specify which keyboard LEDs can be user-controlled (eg, with xset(1))
#       Option  "Xleds"         "1 2 3"

# To disable the XKEYBOARD extension, uncomment XkbDisable.
#       Option  "XkbDisable"

# To customise the XKB settings to suit your keyboard, modify the
# lines below (which are the defaults).  For example, for a non-U.S.
# keyboard, you will probably want to use:
#       Option  "XkbModel"      "pc102"
# If you have a US Microsoft Natural keyboard, you can use:
#       Option  "XkbModel"      "microsoft"
#
# Then to change the language, change the Layout setting.
# For example, a german layout can be obtained with:
#       Option  "XkbLayout"     "de"
# or:
#       Option  "XkbLayout"     "de"
#       Option  "XkbVariant"    "nodeadkeys"
#
# If you'd like to switch the positions of your capslock and
# control keys, use:
#       Option  "XkbOptions"    "ctrl:swapcaps"
         Option  "XkbRules"      "xfree86"
         Option  "XkbModel"      "pc105"
         Option  "XkbLayout"     "us"
         #Option "XkbVariant"    ""
         #Option "XkbOptions"    ""
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
         Identifier  "Mouse0"
         Driver      "mouse"
         Option      "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
         Option      "Device" "/dev/psaux"
         Option      "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
         Option      "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
EndSection


Section "InputDevice"
         Identifier      "Mouse1"
         Driver          "mouse"
         Option          "Device"                "/dev/input/mice"
         Option          "Protocol"              "IMPS/2"
         Option          "Emulate3Buttons"       "no"
         Option          "ZAxisMapping"          "4 5"
EndSection



-- 
Andrew Mathews
---------------------------------------------------------------------
   7:45am  up 7 days, 43 min,  5 users,  load average: 1.11, 1.17, 1.16
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I knew one thing: as soon as anyone said you didn't need a gun, you'd better
take one along that worked.
		-- Raymond Chandler



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