F12b won't start X on ThinkPad W700 - works now

[Adam Williamson]

On Mon, 2009-11-02 at 10:42 -0600, Robert G. (Doc) Savage wrote:

> > lspci -nn output would be useful. Are you _sure_ there's
> > no /etc/X11/xorg.conf file ? The only chips that the auto-detect code
> > should use nv for are very old ones. Unless NVIDIA have started re-using
> > PCI IDs...
> 
> Adam & Vedran,
> 
> I did a from-scratch 64-bit F12b installation from DVD last night, so I
> can't go back and look for anything from that F12a -> F12b upgrade that
> didn't work. The good news is that X now works in the fresh install.
> There are some other problems I need to document separately.
> 
> 'lspci -nn'
> 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]:nVidia Corporation Device [10de:061e] (rev a2)
> 
> 'lspci -v'
> 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Device 061e (rev a2) (prog if 00 [VGA controller])
> 	Subsystem: Lenovo Device 2118
> 	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, irq 16
> 	Memory at cd000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
> 	Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
> 	Memory at ce000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=32M]
> 	I/O ports at 2000 [size=128]
> 	Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
> 	Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 3
> 	Capabilities: [68] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
> 	Capabilities: [78] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
> 	Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel <?>
> 	Capabiltiies: [128] Power Budgeting <?>
> 	Capabilities: [600] Vendor Specific Information <?>
> 	Kernel driver in use: nouveau
> 	Kernel modules: nouveau, nvidiafb
>  
> No xorg.conf file here. (Note to self: after all the effort I went
> through in the old days to learn how to customize xf86.conf, I really
> need to pop the hood on this new server and figure out how it works.)

There's just no way that chip could possibly be auto-detected to use the
nv driver, that I can see. The fact that it works on a clean install
also indicates that auto-detection uses the nouveau driver, as it
should.

On the previous install did you run system-config-display at all? That
would generate an xorg.conf file using the 'nv' driver (which it really
shouldn't, but that's by-the-by).

There hasn't been any major change in xorg.conf format except for the
changes that came with RandR 1.2. The difference these days is that an
xorg.conf is not *required*: if one is present it is used just as it was
before, but if none is present, X.org auto-detects input devices,
display adapters and screens at each startup. By default Fedora does not
create an xorg.conf and relies on X.org's auto-detection.

The changes to xorg.conf format that apply to any RandR 1.2 driver (that
includes nouveau, ati/radeon and intel) are pretty well-summarized here:

http://wiki.debian.org/XStrikeForce/HowToRandR12

-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org
http://www.happyassassin.net