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New 10.20 install, X Fails

 
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Arthur Corliss
Occasional Advisor

New 10.20 install, X Fails

Looking in SAM, it look as if X cannot recognise the monitor, and so refuses to run. I'm running a standard PC monitor through a KVM, and attempting to identify it fails completely.

Any voodoo I should know to get X running again?
10 REPLIES 10
Bill Hassell
Honored Contributor

Re: New 10.20 install, X Fails

There's some missing information here. Windows does not have any support to X11 (Xwindows) so you must have some special software on your PC such as Exceed or WRQ's Reflection/X. This must be properly configured and running before any X-inquiry to your display will succeed. I don't know what a KVM might be.

Also, the 9000 must know your display's name/IPaddr. This is set with $DISPLAY. However, if this value is not set at all, then SAM will always run in character mode. It sounds like $DISPLAY is set to some other computer name and it is indeed running...but the display is somewhere else.


Bill Hassell, sysadmin
Arthur Corliss
Occasional Advisor

Re: New 10.20 install, X Fails

I don't think I was clear enough, this has absolutely nothing to do with Windows.

An HP 715/100 was wiped clean, and a new install of 10.20 was put on it. I am using a standard PC monitor with this system, via a KVM (console switcher).

Now, X is unable to start on :0 (localhost, of course), and going into SAM, the display settings show that X is using the correct adapter, but it cannot identify the monitor (and using the 'Identify' function in SAM doesn't work).

I don't believe this is a address/environment problem (the box is on a network, and works fine in that regards), but a problem with the setmon not being able to get any information on the monitor.

I'll keep experimenting, but I'm hoping I'm not the only one who's had to deal with that weirdness. . .
Mike Stroyan
Honored Contributor

Re: New 10.20 install, X Fails

The system does not have any mechanism to sense the type of monitor. (It doesn't even know if a monitor is connected.) The more likely problem is with the keyboard or mouse. You might get better results if
you make sure the selector is set to the HP-UX workstation when you turn on the workstation. The details really depend on the KVM hardware.

Here is a pointer to a long and thorough presentation on using KVM switches with HP-UX-
http://www.hp.com/visualize/programs/interex/interexpapers/parisc_ia_console.pdf
Arthur Corliss
Occasional Advisor

Re: New 10.20 install, X Fails

The problem is most definitely not the mouse and/or keyboard. Both work perfectly fine in console mode, and also work fine on the same machine with a pre-loaded 11.0 drive. I only wanted to put 10.20 on the system since: a) it's the only version I have internally, and b) 11.0 is a little overkill for that hardware.

Hence, my assertion that the keyboard, mouse, and monitor are just fine.

As to not being able to detect the hardware, just what is /opt/graphics/common/bin/setmon for, anyway? Is it not for probing/setting display modes? Perhaps I'm missing something here, but SAM apparrently thinks it can identify the monitor, but it comes up empty-handed each time.

BTW, the KVM isn't an issue, either, since I have hooked it up directly to the system as well with the same results.
DougStrasburg
Frequent Advisor

Re: New 10.20 install, X Fails

I assume you are running Sam in text mode, and that CDE is not displaying on the console monitor when you boot 10.20.

Things to check are:

1. who -r (CDE starts at run-level 3)
(Change /etc/inittab for initdefault)

2. If at run-level 3, then
ps -ef | grep dtlogin # should be two

3. If no dtlogin running check
/etc/rc.config.d/desktop
for DESKTOP=CDE
If not set then run
/usr/dt/bin/dtconfig -e
/sbin/init.d/dtlogin.rc start

4. If only one dtlogin running check
/etc/dt/config/Xservers file at
bottom for commented line. Uncomment
if commented. Should look like
* Local local@console /usr/bin/X11/X :0
then execute
/usr/dt/bin/dtconfig -reset

5. If the above does not help then
check the contents of
/var/dt/Xerrors
run and fix errors discovered by
/usr/contrib/bin/X11/dr_dt | more

6. Try starting X manually at the command
line to see what errors you get.
/usr/bin/X11/X :0

If the screen turns grey then X has
started successfully. To kill and get
back to command line
Ctrl+Shift+Pause/Break

Mike Stroyan
Honored Contributor

Re: New 10.20 install, X Fails

/opt/graphics/common/bin/setmon is for setting a graphics card to one of various resolutions and refresh rates. Some settings are more appropriate than others for particular monitors.

If sam and setmon don't report the existence of the 715/100 graphics, then you have probably missing kernel support for that device. You might have installed a really old release of HP-UX that lacked support for a device or you may have left out a necessary kernel device driver.
To check what graphics devices the kernel sees use
ioscan -funC graphics

To check for the graphics driver in the kernel use
lsdev -d framebuf

You can add the graph3 kernel driver using sam.
You can get the latest updates to 10.20 from
http://www.software.hp.com/products/ACE/index.html

Arthur Corliss
Occasional Advisor

Re: New 10.20 install, X Fails

I appreciate both of the latest responses. While neither seem to clinch the issue, you've definitely provided some good direction for troubleshooting.

My 10.20 CDs aren't that old, but I'll start looking into some of the subsequent patches. SAM does seem to recognize the card that's installed, but I have to admit that I'm perplexed by it's insistance that the monitor is providing no information via setmon. :-P

On to patch central!
David A. Fortin
Advisor
Solution

Re: New 10.20 install, X Fails

I had a similar problem. It turned out that the kernel did not have the PS2 driver installed. Using SAM, under "Kernel Configuration->Drivers," make sure the "ps2" driver is installed in the kernel. If not, select it, use the "Actions->Add Driver to Kernel" menu item to add it in and the select the "Actions->Create New Kernel" menu item to creat the new kernel. SAM will then prompt you to move the new kernel into place and reboot the system.

This solved the problem for me.
Mike Stroyan
Honored Contributor

Re: New 10.20 install, X Fails

OK, I think this setmon matter has been a red herring. The setmon command is fairly recent and does not have support for some older displays that you might have in that 715/100. You can check that using-
/opt/graphics/common/bin/setmon -r

It may just say the device does not support setmon. Those older devices could only have their video settings changed from the boot ROM menus. The X server does not require any particular video mode, so that is not a possible cause of the X server failure.

You can look for error messages from the X server in /var/dt/Xerrors and in /var/X11/Xserver/logs/X0.log. You can also just type "X :0" at the console shell prompt and see what kind of error message you get. The keyboard and mouse are again likely suspects. The X server depends on different device files than the console terminal emulator, so bad input configuration could affect the X server even when the console works.