A Frog in the Valley

Working from home today. Start my desktop computer, haven't worked on it for a while… Familiar linux stuff flowing on the screen during boot process. Then, the not so familiar error : “no screens found” … X server can't start. Shit.

Go in /etc/X11 (learned a while ago how to probe there for config problems). Look at my conf file. Hum. Looks normal. Shit. Startx. Does not work. Shit. Do I have the time for that? Check out the X FAQ on wiki.x.org… (from my mac laptop). No hints. Google for ideas. Shit. First hit. Ubuntu xorg-server update breaks X: “no screens found”. Well thanks.

sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-core=1:1.0.2-0ubuntu10
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart

A better workaround appears to be upgrading to xorg-server 1:1.0.2-0ubuntu10.4, after verifying that it is available in your repositories. To check and see if it is available to you, use the following commands:

sudo apt-get update
apt-cache -f search xserver-xorg-core

If the 10.4 version listed, then proceed with:

sudo apt-get upgrade

Did just that. Hey, that’s how you learn new stuff on computer. By digging underneath. That’s how I learned programming on the Apple IIe. Poking around in DOS to make the computer play sounds. Friggin debug windows 3.11 to make it use the correct french canadian driver. Learned networking with NT4 with tracert and ping and command line ftp. Learned how to optmize ram on PowerPC Quadra 840av. Learned how to hand clean the registry in Windows 98, 98 and 2000… Learned how to tweak rewrite rules in .htaccess files thru ssh sessions in a terminal…

Learning takes time. Frustrating problems are great to learn how your computer really works. Sometime, you don't have time. But you have to. TINSTAAFL! I am telling you, geeks are made, not born.