How to recover X display?

[Lisa Kachold]

Not exactly....
I apologise, I was reading for context, and make sense from within a wealth of 22 years of Nix experience.
The link is describing difficulty with v41/ABI drivers within Virtualbox booting into X via PCLinuxOS.  When you build a virtualbox client, the xdrivers modules are created also; sometimes when one installs Virtualbox (and/or Xen), they decide to run their first system in a virtual under the OS, which is then described as primary in the grub configuration via the new kernel that was built during install (which might cause an X and kernel module mismatch).  For instance under Redhat/XEN this is usually what is called a PAE kernel.  You, after installing Virtualbox, verified that you are still running the same kernel from grub.conf?  You can also look at the file creation date for the kernel that is indicated to boot first into the grub configuration. 
Post installation of Virtualbox, your Xorg logs say what?

If I remember correctly Xorg was whining we needed a couple of kernel modules?  Irregardless of whether you are now running in a VirtualBox or not, this post matches what is happening to you?  
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=611644
a) boot fails to go to X
b) you can't startx
Solutions:
1) You can try to boot into your system and reconfigure your X drivers via command line?
First try this:  
# sudo Xconfigurator 
You can try to configure your monitor and video card for X via this utility.
Might work, it's worth a try...[but not highly probable].
2) Update/upgrade your system, although this might have been what caused it.  There are some major differences between the way that X uses kernel drivers for video cards in recent versions.  
http://distrowatch.com/index.php?distribution=all&month=all&year=2009
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

3) Kernel modules and X drivers
Your Xorg errors talked about two drivers:
module ABI major version (1) doesn't match server's version (2)
failed to load module "v41" (module requirement mismatch,0)
# sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg 
4) Revert your failed system If these questions do not make sense, and you can't either fix the driver errors or roll back the changes made adding virtualbox source, it would be easiest for you to just rebuild.  Download a new ISO from distrowatch (or a new OS) and burn it to CD (or DVD if you have that luxury) carefully selecting the i386/686 versions and drop the hammer on this failed learning project, and go on to bigger and better things!
After you rebuild your shiny new system, keep your BUILD DVD/CD, so you can use it to boot emergency for trouble/rebuild.  Always keep a record of all steps that are done, (especially updates, etc. and test between upgrade installation steps) for packaging the issues for others.
5) If all this fails, take your box back to the InstallFesters and/or call one of us.
Obnosis | (503)754-4452




PLUG Linux Security Labs 2nd Saturday Each Month at Noon - 3PM






> Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:38:32 -0700
> Subject: Re: How to recover X display?
> From: joe at actionline.com
> To: plug-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> 
> Now, I'm even more thoroughly confused.
> 
> On 3/23/09, Lisa Kachold <lisakachold at obnosis.com> wrote:
> > http://reformedmusings.wordpress.com/2008/12/11/installing-sun-virtualbox-6-guest-additions-in-linux-guests/
> 
> This is describing installing PCLinuxOS as a virtual machine inside a
> working Ubuntu-VirtualBox setup ... which doesn't seem to have
> anything to do with trying to get my installed PCLinuxOS system X
> recovered.
> 
> The article says: "Guest Additions installs from a CD iso file.
> 
> I don't have any CD iso for this.
> 
> The article then says: "So, we need to load the iso as a CD in our
> virtual machine.
> For this, the virtual machine must be shut down (powered off)."
> 
> There is no way I can do this when my basic machine is not working.
> ---------------------------------------------------
> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
> http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss

_________________________________________________________________
Windows Live™ SkyDrive: Get 25 GB of free online storage.
http://windowslive.com/online/skydrive?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_skydrive_032009
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/pipermail/plug-discuss/attachments/20090324/521f8c2a/attachment.htm