Lisa, thank you profusely for all of your "far beyond the extra mile" efforts to help me solve this matter. I will get back to work on this asap and follow all of your suggestions. It may take me a while to get back to this because this laptop is not a mission-critical unit and I have to get caught up on my regular work on my old reliable computer before I resume work on trying to get the laptop going again. Again, I sincerely appreciate all of your help! Many, many thanks. Joe On 3/24/09, Lisa Kachold wrote: > > Corrections in red: > > 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 video > modules? Irregardless of whether you are now running in a VirtualBox or > not: > > 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@Noon - 3PM > > > > Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:38:32 -0700 > > Subject: Re: How to recover X display? > > From: joe@actionline.com > > To: plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us > > > > Now, I'm even more thoroughly confused. > > > > On 3/23/09, Lisa Kachold 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@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. 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