Solved HP Mini 110 black screen

C

Cgordon

I have tried getting xorg to run on my hp mini 110. The commands xorg -configure detects mouse and keyboard fine. It seems to detect the monitor and driver correctly too.
But when I run startx, I just get a blank screen that on rebooting the machine seems to fix.

Any ideas what needs changed in xorg.conf?
 
Re: Hp mini 110 black screen

Do not use -configure. Delete or rename /etc/xorg.conf and /usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf so they are not used. Then try startx again.

There are a lot of other things that can happen to prevent X from looking normal. What version of FreeBSD? Was X installed from ports or packages? Which version of X? Is a login manager running? Are HAL and dbus running?
 
Re: Hp mini 110 black screen

I know I'm not sticking to the forum rules but I'm using a tablet so formatting messages isn't possible.

  • FreeBSD 10
  • hald and dbus are both running.
  • GNOME2
  • X server 1.7.7 and X protocol v11 r 0
I have deleted both .conf files and still there's no difference.

Thanks for the quick reply.
 
Re: Hp mini 110 black screen

Just an update, I reinstalled FreeBSD 10 and have ran portsnap fetch extract. Now I'm installing xorg from ports. There won't be any desktop environment installed yet. So how should I test that xorg works properly? Should I add hald_enable and dbus_enable to my rc.conf before testing?
 
Re: Hp mini 110 black screen

I'm still no further and I've had to re-install FreeBSD 10 again. Then I added GNOME2 and X.Org from packages. So what's my next step command-wise? I'm asking because so far nothing else has worked yet. I haven't added anything to my rc.conf file yet nor created a ~/.xinitrc.

Thanks again.
 
Re: Hp mini 110 black screen

Cgordon said:
Still no further and I've had to re-install FreeBSD 10 again.
Click to expand...

Why? The operating system is fine, reinstalling it is not going to make any difference to applications like X. And reinstalling it wipes out the ports you have already spent time building. It would be different to install one of the recent 10-STABLE snapshots, which gets a newer version of X. But that should not be needed on a standard Atom netbook.

Then I added GNOME2 and Xorg from packages. So what's my next step command-wise? I'm asking because so far nothing else has worked yet. I haven't added anything to my rc.conf file yet nor created a ~/.xinitrc.
Click to expand...

Installing additional applications is fine, but it will not matter until X runs.

Enable HAL and D-Bus in /etc/rc.conf.
 
Re: Hp mini 110 black screen

wblock@ said:
Enable HAL and dbus in /etc/rc.conf.
Click to expand...

Okay, they are added and when I run startx the screen is black without a cursor or keyboard. Is that X.Org running properly?

I'm assuming that startx is blank because ~/.xinitrc doesn't exist and xterm hasn't been installed. So should I create ~/.xinitrc and include the following line?
Code: 
dbus-launch --exit-with-session gnome-session
I'm basing my reason for that on your answer in another post: https://forums.freebsd.org/viewtopic.php?&t=40568. Basically, this is where I get stuck because I don't know what to do to run GNOME from a startx.
 
Re: Hp mini 110 black screen

If ~/.xinitrc is not present, x11-wm/twm is run. It is installed with x11/xorg.

I strongly suggest you get something simple working before jumping into one of the huge desktop manager environments.

After enabling HAL and D-Bus in /etc/rc.conf, start those services with service or restart the computer.
 
Re: Hp mini 110 black screen

I restarted my machine and both HAL and dbus services start up correctly. It is the next step which I don't know what to do for my screen to show anything other than a black screen.

Bluntly should I be seeing a blank black screen when I run startx? No desktop environment installed yet, remember.
 
Re: Hp mini 110 black screen

Normally you would get a greyish screen with an X in the centre, or the twm window manager. I think you need to get the vesa driver to load. In xorg.conf, I changed the driver line to read vesa, then added a Modes line to the Screen section subsection Display.
Code: 
Modes "1024x600" "800x600"
 
Re: Hp mini 110 black screen

Thanks,

Yes that worked after I ran X -configure.

To recap for anyone else that's stuck. Once Xorg is installed from package or port. I had to run X -configure. Then edit the newly create file, edit [file]/root/xorg.conf.new[/file]. Change the above sections and subsections:
bsdkeith said:
In xorg.conf, I changed the driver line to read vesa, then added a Modes line to the Screen section subsection Display.
Modes "1024x600" "800x600"
Click to expand...
After which I tested it with the command X -conf /root/xorg.conf.new -retro. Once that worked I just moved it to the proper directory mv xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf and reboot.

Thanks for the help again and quick replies, the issue is just its an old laptop and the default Intel driver of X.Org didn't work properly. Now to tackle GNOME. And how do I mark this as solved?
 
Re: Hp mini 110 black screen

The intel driver is used on Atom netbooks. No xorg.conf is needed on mine.

To repeat, when x11/xorg is installed, x11-wm/twm is installed as part of it.

Did you install from a port or package? Which one, exactly? Does /usr/local/bin/twm exist? Does ~/.xinitrc exist?

I suggest installing 10-STABLE from a snapshot, which has the vt(4) driver in the generic kernel and will automatically get the latest KMS version of X.
 
Re: Hp mini 110 black screen

Cgordon said:
And how do I mark this as solved?
Click to expand...
Edit the first post of the thread. There you can add [Solved] to the subject.
 
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