Re: [Hampshire] Feisty - changing Graphics Card

James Ashburner wrote:
> Rob Malpass wrote:
>
>> What I need to do is boot, stop X from starting, dpkg-reconfigure to
>> get the correct settings, and gdm start (repeat until settings are
>> correct) but as I can't start X (or even login!) I'm a bit sunk.
>
> You could try:
>
> # telinit 3
>
> To drop to runlevel 3 which should kill off the X server

Yup, or manually kill the X and gdm processes at the command prompt,
revert to a known good xorg.conf or driver and start troubleshooting
from there. Swings and roundabouts I know, but that's generally the
route I go when I find myself here.

I always make a point of doing a belt'n'braces backup of my xorg.conf
now, too, despite the fact that most apps seem to perform this courtesy
before they implement major changes to the system files. In that way I
can usually get back to a vesa or nv driver solution that works until I
can get the wrinkles ironed out. It's been a while since I have been
dumped at the command line by an upgrade that didn't do this for me, but
it can be as irritating as hell to resolve and trivial to prevent with
a simple 'cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.<date>' prior to
answering 'yes' to an action that might do damage.

Apologies if I am stating the bleedin' obvious there!

Sean