F12b won't start X on ThinkPad W700

Robert G. (Doc) Savage dsavage at peaknet.net
Sun Nov 1 12:43:37 UTC 2009


This worked in F12a, but fails in F12b.

After the end of the interactive startup, X should start but doesn't.
Instead the screen flickers for a few seconds, then a text mode mouse
cursor starts but nothing else. I can switch to a text console with
Alt-F2 and log in. There I can run 'init 3' followed by 'init 5' to
repeat the screen flicker and X failure.

/var/log/messages reports several cycles of these errors: 
...
Nov 1 03:07:46 tiger gdm-binary[3284]: WARNING: GdmDisplay: display lasted 0.040159 seconds
Nov 1 03:07:46 tiger gdm-binary[3284]: WARNING: GdmDisplay: display lasted 0.036060 seconds
Nov 1 03:07:46 tiger gdm-binary[3284]: WARNING: GdmDisplay: display lasted 0.045664 seconds
Nov 1 03:07:46 tiger gdm-binary[3284]: WARNING: GdmDisplay: display lasted 0.036250 seconds
Nov 1 03:07:46 tiger gdm-binary[3284]: WARNING: GdmDisplay: display lasted 0.033914 seconds
Nov 1 03:07:46 tiger gdm-binary[3284]: WARNING: GdmDisplay: display lasted 0.033914 seconds
Nov 1 03:07:46 tiger gdm-binary[3284]: WARNING: GdmDisplay: display lasted 0.034592 seconds
Nov 1 03:07:46 tiger gdm-binary[3284]: WARNING: GdmLocalDisplayFactory: maximum number of X display failures reached: check X server log for errors
Nov 1 03:07:46 tiger init: prefdm main process (3284) terminated with status 1
Nov 1 03:07:46 tiger init: prefdm main process ended, respawning
Nov 1 03:07:46 tiger init: prefdm respawning too fast, stopped

This looks very much like one of the contrived problems in the RHCE
exam, so I checked /var/log/Xorg.0.log:

...
(II) NV: driver for NVIDIA chipsets: RIVA 128, RIVA TNT, RIVA TNT2,
Unknown TNT2, Vanta, RIVA TNT2 Ultra, RIVA TNT2 Model 64,
...
Quadro FX 370 LP, Quadro NVS 450, Quadro NVS 295
(II) Primary Device is: PCI 01000:00:0
The PCI device has a kernel module claiming it.
This driver cannot operate unti it has been unloaded
(EE) No devices detected.

Fatal server error:
no screens found
...

I did an upgrade from F12a to F12b. I'm now setting up a beta DVD to try
a fresh installation.

--Doc Savage
  Fairview Heights, IL




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