Martin, Do you understand how to use virtual consoles? If the entire problem is misconfigured X, then you should have no problem using a text console.
By default, Debian creates six virtual text consoles, and X uses the seventh vc. To switch from an X console to a text console, use Alt-Ctrl-Fn, where Fn identifies the console, e.g. F1 for console 1. To switch from a text console, the Ctrl is unnecessary (e.g. Alt-F4), but is innocuous. The reason for the Ctrl is that X reserves Alt-Fn keys for application use. To switch back to X, use Alt-F7 (or Alt-Ctrl-F7). Each console is independent and preserves its state even when that console is not displayed, so you can login on three different text consoles and in X, and switch between them. You can have multiple X servers running, and each will use a separate vc; e.g. the second X server will use vc 8 (if available). I have seen cases where the broken X configuration put the video card in a state where I could not Alt-Ctrl-F1 back to a text console (or I could, but the screen did not reflect reality, so I was typing blind), so this may not work in your case. Also, if you start with "1" as a kernel parameter, you should not get to the point where X starts, and you should be able to use the text consoles to debug. Without gdm (or kdm or xdm) running, you can start a one-time X session (without the graphical login screen) using startx from a shell (on a text console). For an nVidia graphics adapter, you probably want to install the non-free nvidia-kernel-* package for the kernel you are using and the nvidia-glx package. The nvidia-kernel-* packages provide the kernel module for driving the text consoles, and the nvidia-glx module provides the xorg modules. To add non-free to the list of Debian package sources, edit /etc/apt/sources.list to include contrib and non-free after main. These lines should work for etch, but you may want different servers/distributions: deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security etch/updates main contrib non-free deb-src http://security.debian.org/debian-security etch/updates main contrib non-free deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian etch main contrib non-free deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian etch main contrib non-free There is also an xdebconfigurator package that purports to assist in configuring xfree86 and xorg servers, but I have not used it. Hope this helps! ...Marvin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
