initial boot - desktop doesn't show up, only an 'X' in the center

[damig]

hi all,
I'm very excited for the existence of a distribution of this kind and I thank you for it.
My problem is the desktop not showing, no mouse pointer, and only black screen with an outlined "X" in white shows in the center. The 'Isolinux boot screen' shows up for a second and gets replaced with the 'X'. Tried the second boot option (for slow devices) but no luck. Loading only prompt works.
I used tinycore-current.iso (for users with wired internet) on a toshiba satellite A10-S1001 laptop with over 700mb ram. I use another Linux distro on it, so it's tested and working well.
Thank you and all the best

[Rich]

Hi damig
If you are booting from a USB thumb drive and used a third party installer, then reinstall using one of the Tinycore tools. See the FAQ page.

[damig]

hi Rich, thx for posting and sorry for not mentioning; my installation medium is CD. Unfortunately the BIOS doesn't support USB pendrive boot.
I've read the Q&A section but there's no mention of my problem, as well as forum search (as well as googling the net). I've also tried some of the commands but the output is always

Code: [Select]

-sh: xxxxxx: not found

[Juanito]

Since you have a wired connection, you can boot the cd to the command prompt and then try "tce-load -iw Xorg-7.7", then "startx" and see if that works.

[damig]

the download went well but "startx" came back with "-sh: startx: not found"

[CentralWare]

@damig: Try something for me if you would.
Boot your CD (please note which VERSION you're booting, 4.x, 5.x or 6.x)
When you reach your "X" in the middle of the screen, press CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE to shut down the desktop (X server)
If successful, you should be at the command prompt.  (This tells me the keyboard is working, at very least.)

Next, type in the following line:
tce-load -wi Xlibs flwm_topside
If I'm guessing correctly, these should both already be installed.  If you see a progress bar for either, please note here which.

Finally, launch setupx so we can manually select the screen resolution and mouse settings.
Set your screen to 800x600x24 (initially) and 2-button mouse (usb/ps2)
Once done, launch startx and reply here as to what you find.

If you have a desktop (and icons, etc.) doing this manually, reboot the machine with the CD.
Once back at your "X" in the middle screen, move the mouse around for a few seconds.  Does the "X" move?
Next, shut down X like you did above and then run the following:
cat /etc/sysconfig/desktop
(post the results here)

The "X" on the screen is telling me you don't seem to have a Window Manager running; which if you're booting from an ISO you burned, this shouldn't be the case.  It sounds to me as though you might have better luck running an older version of TC if you're not already doing so.  Go to the repository and nab a copy of CorePlus-current.iso (link below) and burn this to CD.  This should give you the greatest flexibility with the least number of challenges.
http://tinycorelinux.net/4.x/x86/release/
Once burned, boot the machine with this CD and select the first item on the boot menu (which should boot your machine with Xvesa and the flwm "topside" window manager, Xprogs (a few basic configuration tools) along with the Wbar icon manager for the bottom of the screen.  If successful, you should be on your desktop in a matter of seconds and have little if anything needing to be done.
If you're planning to "install" TC onto the machine, this CD also has the necessary tools to do so (the "grey circle" icon to the far right is tc-install)
If you need things such as a browser, email, chat, office, etc. this is where Apps will come in handy, but being a Live-CD environment this will only last for as long as the machine stays powered on (and not rebooted.)

Hope this helps - please report back your findings!

[damig]

thx centralware
ctrl+alt+bckspace doesn't work, but ctrl+alt+del does for reboot (after 4 secs)
in the mean time, the charger died to try the other iso, so I need a new one and will be back later today to report

[damig]

ah yes, the version is 6.0 and I've attached a photo of the screen with the x.
I'm trying to build a multiCD with more light distros and some utilities (which I find it hard) and that's why I'm a bit slow. But if I don't succeed, I'll burn the recommended iso solitary and report back if it was right solution for my laptop.

[coreplayer2]

AIUI the X means only that your Window Manager is not loaded.

try adding a window manager to your onboot.lst

for example one of these, whichever is installed in your extension store
fluxbox.tcz
flwm.tcz
flwm_topside.tcz
hackedbox.tcz

it can be loaded at the boot command menu, or back at the command line if you close X

tceload -i flwm

I prefer to add all required extensions in the onboot.lst

good luck