[ale] Debian Jessie upgrade startx dead

[Alex Carver]

Without xorg.conf the blank screen comes back.  Obviously something has
broken but at least I get some functionality back with the vesa drivers.

The machine is old enough that things like video playback and
acceleration is just not going to happen.  My main purpose for the
machine was for basic browsing (i.e. quick searches) and several xterms
open for coding.  Nothing terribly taxing.

On 2016-05-01 11:22, Boris Borisov wrote:
> But it is upsetting that you have hardware not being used at the moment. You 
> cannot enjoy smooth scroll in browsers not accerated video playback or 3D 
> acceleration for some applications.
> 
> I see xorg.conf being used in your logs. Xorg is self configuring for quite a 
> while. Try renaiming this file and run X.
> 
> On May 1, 2016 1:33 PM, "Alex Carver" <agcarver+ale at acarver.net 
> <mailto:agcarver%2Bale at acarver.net>> wrote:
> 
>     Yep, vesa works thankfully.  It's strange because during the original
>     install of wheezy it tried to use vesa and failed so I switched to the
>     trident driver since the chip is a trident.  Oh well, as long as it
>     works I'm happy.
> 
>     On 2016-05-01 07:28, Boris Borisov wrote:
>      > Try some other driver. Vesa or fb.
>      >
>      > On May 1, 2016 12:01 AM, "Alex Carver" <agcarver+ale at acarver.net
>     <mailto:agcarver%2Bale at acarver.net>
>      > <mailto:agcarver%2Bale at acarver.net
>     <mailto:agcarver%252Bale at acarver.net>>> wrote:
>      >
>      >     A little extra info, I fired up top in a remote shell and tried to run
>      >     startx on the console.  I saw startx fire up followed by xinit and then,
>      >     after some delay, both went away.
>      >
>      >     On 2016-04-30 20:07, Alex Carver wrote:
>      >      > Runlevel is 2 so no login managers are running.
>      >      >
>      >      > No display managers are installed either (dpkg comes up blank)
>      >      >
>      >      > The log doesn't scream anything obvious to me but this is what I get
>      >      > (currently the screen is blank as of posting this log file, but
>     Xorg is
>      >      > no longer listed in the process list.  In fact I think I caught it
>     dying
>      >      > (I thought I spotted a Z-zombie next to it in top).
>      >      >
>      >
>      >      >
>      >      >
>      >      >
>      >      > On 2016-04-30 19:58, Dustin Strickland wrote:
>      >      >> Just some wild guesses, but maybe check your runlevel. Perhaps run a
>      >     `dpkg -l
>      >      >> *dm` to see if perhaps the upgrade installed a display manager
>     for some
>      >     reason.
>      >      >> Do you have anything relevant in your Xorg logs?
>      >      >>
>      >      >> On Sat, Apr 30, 2016 at 10:13 PM, Alex Carver
>     <agcarver+ale at acarver.net <mailto:agcarver%2Bale at acarver.net>
>      >     <mailto:agcarver%2Bale at acarver.net <mailto:agcarver%252Bale at acarver.net>>
>      >      >> <mailto:agcarver+ale at acarver.net
>     <mailto:agcarver%2Bale at acarver.net> <mailto:agcarver%2Bale at acarver.net
>     <mailto:agcarver%252Bale at acarver.net>>>>
>      >     wrote:
>      >      >>
>      >      >>     Already did that, didn't work.
>      >      >>
>      >      >>     On 2016-04-30 18:20, DJ-Pfulio wrote:
>      >      >>      > Create a new account and try that.  That will rule out
>      >     userid-specific config
>      >      >>      > issues.
>      >      >>      >
>      >      >>      > On 04/30/2016 08:40 PM, Alex Carver wrote:
>      >      >>      >> I just upgraded a laptop from Wheezy to Jessie.  Under Wheezy
>      >     everything
>      >      >>      >> was fine, I could log in then run startx to bring up the
>     desktop
>      >      >>      >> (fluxbox).  Under Jessie I can't get anything to come up,
>     I just
>      >     get a
>      >      >>      >> black screen.  Even the virtual terminals are dead (can't
>      >     Ctrl-Alt-Fn or
>      >      >>      >> crash out with Ctrl-Alt-Backspace).
>      >      >>      >>
>      >      >>      >> Nothing seems out of the ordinary, I don't see any
>     obvious error
>      >      >>      >> messages during the startup process.
>      >      >>      >>
>      >      >>      >> I'd love suggestions about other places to look for any other
>      >     issues.
>      >      >>      >> Command line is working, video looks normal there.  I don't
>      >     think any
>      >      >>      >> configurations changed but I do have a backup of /etc to
>     compare
>      >     against
>      >      >>      >> but a quick glance says no changes.
>      >      >
>      >      > _______________________________________________