Can't start X through gdm or startx

[David Leal]

After updating my Karmic system today, I can no longer start X through gdm or startx. The only way I managed to start X again was by running 'xinit gnome-session'.

The screen goes blank (very dim), then it seems to shutdown, then back to blank, on and on and on.

I'm using the latest nvidia drivers on Karmic. I switched to the nv drivers and the same problem happens.

Last update I ran before this one was 2 or 3 days ago. I'm attaching an strace log for startx (don't know if that helps).

[Nikola Yanev (gericom)]

it seems to be like nvidia's drivers, it's happen the same here yesterday, so just revert to vesa or remove xorg.conf (back it up before removing it) and restart it, sadly you won't have compiz, but you will have X ;)

[David Leal (dgleal)]

Hi Nikola,

did you try the 'nv' (open source) driver as well? I tried that and it still didn't work. I assume the 'nv' driver should work even if the 'nvidia' driver doesn't, as they are different projects.

[David Leal (dgleal)]

Also, I should add that, using 'xinit gnome-session', the 'nvidia' driver works fine (using xmonad with xcompmgr here). It's just gdm and startx that don't work.

(Sorry for the comment spam.)

[Nikola Yanev (gericom)]

yep, also with nv drivers didn't worked. so now i'm without xorg.conf file

[nickolai (nickolai)]

I am having a similar problem with Intel graphics. It looks like the kernel won't go into KMS mode after a recent "apt-get dist-upgrade" -- the console stays in the standard 25x80 text mode (whereas before with KMS it would go into a much higher-res text mode), and X won't start, complaining about /dev/agpgart missing (indeed, it's not there).

I can boot into a previous kernel (2.6.31-9.29) where KMS seems to work better (the text console goes into high-res mode at bootup), and X starts, but for some reason the keyboard and mouse don't work. Not sure what else to try rolling back.

[Nikola Yanev (gericom)]

just edited the xotg.conf like that and reinstalled nvidia drivers, and all is working perfectly. just removed the other lines so only these ones are present.

Section "Screen"
 Identifier "Default Screen"
 DefaultDepth 24
EndSection

Section "Module"
 Load "glx"
EndSection

Section "Device"
 Identifier "Default Device"
 Driver "nvidia"
 Option "NoLogo" "True"
EndSection

[nickolai (nickolai)]

It looks like my failure (with Intel graphics) was indirectly caused by problems with startup scripts, as described in bug 430125.

[Apteryx (maxco)]

Today's karmic updates also broke my X-server. I've used startx from the shell, but after a brief X flash I'm back into the shell, with no other error than ddxSigGiveUp.

I've tried using the nv driver, but it doesn't help. Also tried Nikola Yanev's solution, but I still can't startX =|. Using older kernels don't allow X initialisation either. =/

[Apteryx (maxco)]

Phew! Latest initscripts update fixed the regression! Glad the developpers saw the "oops" quickly :)

[David Leal (dgleal)]

This is working for me now, too.

[Victor Vargas (kamus)]

This bug report is being closed due to your last comment regarding this being fixed with an update. Thank you again for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please submit any future bugs you may find.