black screen after x starts

[sleekmountaincat]

hi there,

first of all, thanks for such an insanely awesome project. i love it.

i am testing out different options for a thin client operating system. i found TCL a few days ago and really think it would fit the bill for my organization, however, i am having trouble getting x to load on my wyse v90le thin clients. i am using Core-current.iso and have set up PXE booting no problem.  using vesa driver works fine, but i need widescreen support. lspci identifies my card as:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN700/P4M800 Pro/P4M800 CE/VN800 [S3 UniChrome Pro] (rev 01)

using the openchrome driver, TCL boots, then when it loads x, my monitor flashes and says signal lost. i can still ssh to the machine, and can ctrl-alt-f1 to console. i have also tried compiling the latest openchrome driver from http://cgit.freedesktop.org/openchrome/xf86-video-openchrome/. it compiles fine (that was a fun learning experience), and i created a new xf86-video-openchrome.tcz extension. TCL boots, but upon loading X i just get a black screen (monitor does NOT say signal lost however). machine doesnt freeze, i can still ssh and ctrl-alt-f1. i cant find anything in Xorg.0.log that seems relevant, but i have attached it anyways. i have also attached lspci and dmesg output.

any help would be GREATLY appreciated. thanks,

chris

[curaga]

There exists another driver for those older via chips called unichrome. If you already compiled openchrome you should be able to build unichrome easily. Perhaps it works better.

edit: link: http://cgit.freedesktop.org/~libv/xf86-video-unichrome/

[sleekmountaincat]

curaga,

thanks for the reply.  unfortunately, i am not sure if unichrome will compile against Xorg-7.7 as make errors out saying it cant find xaalocal.h. tce-ab returns null when i search what provides that, and i cant find anything on google. i am very far from an expert but appears the last version of xorg dev that provides that file is xorg-7.6. i did successfully compile it under tinycore 4.7.1, but i still get the black screen upon loading x. any other thoughts?


thanks,
chris

[curaga]

Not much, you could report a bug to openchrome and maybe try asking on their mailing list.

edit: From your Xorg.0.log: (WW) CHROME(0): Unable to find connected outputs - setting 1024x768 initial framebuffer

How is the screen connected? You may need to create a xorg.conf and force that option. Google "man openchrome", it mentions DVI detection is not working, and if it's connected via DVI, you need to tell it so.

[cast-fish]

This can happen...


it does it here....intermittent.


However, for watching movies over Xvesa and Mplayer.....you can just boot tinycore at 800 by 600 rez
and then making youtube go full screen will yield a nice movie experience.....per CPU horsepower.

that seems to work here with this machine....a   1.7ghz pentium 4   


V

[Misalf]

I can't really tell for PXE booting but I'm using this in my  syslinux.cfg :

Code: [Select]

MENU RESOLUTION 1024 600
This sets the linux console (cli) to 1024x600 as well.
Without, my max reported native resolution would be 800x600.

[cast-fish]

right Misalf,

uh.....it's clearly some Xorg incompatability.  trying to download them two extensions again can sometimes work.

tried it here a few times. ......"xorg  7.4"   and graphics add on extension called  "graphics 3.0.3"    from the appBrowser

uh, just out of interest.....on win32.....if using very old hardware, again you can right click and select compatability mode of any app and check 640  by 480.....when i max screen Youtube doing this it yields a good movie experience at several resolutions......

I use the REDITT list of "full youtube movies free"    .   Againk, i think this is down to cpu horsepower
and the embeded generic win32 graphic driver for all GPU chipsets in existence.   (win XP i am talking about here)


yes

thx


Vince.

[tinypoodle]

just out of interest.....on win32.....if using very old hardware, again you can right click and select compatability mode of any app and check 640  by 480.....when i max screen Youtube doing this it yields a good movie experience at several resolutions......

see xrandr

[sleekmountaincat]

@curaga,

Not much, you could report a bug to openchrome and maybe try asking on their mailing list.

edit: From your Xorg.0.log: (WW) CHROME(0): Unable to find connected outputs - setting 1024x768 initial framebuffer

How is the screen connected? You may need to create a xorg.conf and force that option. Google "man openchrome", it mentions DVI detection is not working, and if it's connected via DVI, you need to tell it so.

thanks for your help. fairly new to X stuff. so i created an xorg conf that specifies i am connecting via DVI, but no luck, it still says unable to find connected outputs. i have googled for hours to no avail. i have attached Xorg.0.log and my xorg.conf, does anything jump out at you?

thanks, chris

[curaga]

I'm afraid nothing jumps up, please contact openchrome folks.

[Rich]

Hi sleekmountaincat
It's a long shot, but try changing this:

Code: [Select]

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "openchrome"
Option "ActiveDevice" "DFP"
EndSectionto this:

Code: [Select]

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "openchrome"
Option "ActiveDevice" "DFP"
Option "VBEModes" "true"
EndSection

[sleekmountaincat]

@curaga,

alas, it looks like their mailing list is pretty unattended these days. i'll give it a shot though, and thanks for your help. now i'll just have to figure out what to do with 100+ wyse v90le's, as no modern kernel/xorg works with them. also thanks again for an amazing project.

@rich,
thanks for the tip, enabling vbemodes yields the same results
although instead of my monitor going black, it says no dvi input. so a little change at least

[curaga]

Do your screens only have DVI input? You could try to use the card's VGA output with VGA-DVI adapters.

[sleekmountaincat]

@curaga,

i am fairly certain that is the issue. unfortunately, the thinclients only have dvi out...

[cast-fish]

Curaga mentions a possible option

the VGA to DVI converter adapters are about $9 each.

Your card is VGA capable it seems it would surely respond to those adapter outputs.

O__0

Vin