suddenly dri, synaptics, dri2, nvidia:does not exist[Solved]

[joe3]

I'm a dedicated multi-distro-booting, startx user, Not because I'm really an expert at either. But I multi-boot so that I'll have at least one spare fully configured distro ready to go when either some system update, or my own stupidity breaks something. I'm a startx user because I strongly dislike gui logins.

Anyway I've had Sabayon on this 7 yr old amd_64, hp pavilion for at least a year now. My memory is a little vague about what exactly I did to get X working in spite of the built in "Nvidia geforce 6150 LE" being very incompatible with nouveau. But I do know that just like the other 4 installed distributions, Sabayon, didn't give me a reasonable X environment until after I installed an propitiatory Nvidia driver...

Since then, as long as startx worked, I had no reason to even remember where the Xorg.0.log was, never mind look at it. So I can't really say just when it started complaining about the directories "/usr/share/fonts/OTF/" & "/usr/share/fonts/Type1/" not existing. Nor when it first started telling me that I needed to run mkfontdir on the "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi/" & "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi/" directories.

And to be honest, I'm not even sure how many of the missing modules "dri", "synaptics", "dri2", could have been missing and still result in a functioning x session. But I'm quite sure Xorg was finding the nvidia module yesterday... But today, when I tried to use startx to fire up my E17 WM/DE if failed. The error message on the console screen told me where the Xorg.0.log was. And that told me that several things were missing, including all four of the modules I just mentioned. I wasn't sure id the dr1, dri2, or synaptics modules were absolutely necessary, but I knew the nvidia driver sure was, so I poked around with equo search until I saw that the installed nvidia driver wasn't the latest available. So I upgraded nvidia with equo, which resulted in "kernel-genkernel-x86_64-3.0.0-sabayon" getting upgraded to "kernel-genkernel-x86_64-3.3.0-sabayon". After which I rebooted and again tried startx. But while startx doesn't give up any more, X only gets far enough to display the background image assigned to Desktop area 0,0 and then it becomes unresponsive to both the mouse and the keyboard... I wind up shutting down with the power switch. The first time the automatic boot time fsck operation did the job. But the second time I tried to fire up startx, I wound up having to run it manually from one of my other Linux installations before my ext3 / partition was restored.

I didn't notice any issues earlier in the week when I did an equo upgrade. Yesterday I was shopping for a 3rd browser that I could get for all 5 installed Linux distros {via their distro specific package management & repos} (I mostly use firefox & opera, But I wanted a third that I could use for facebook {and only facebook} to stop them from tracking my other browser activity) Anyway I had previously settled on konqueror for that, but lately I couldn't get some of Facebook's buttons to respond to clicking on them from konqueror. {such as the "home" page sort order control}. I was looking for one I could stand to use that would work with facebook via equo search www-client, then installing one of them, testing it, and if it didn't work doing an equo remove. When I got around to seamonkey, I forgot to type the --ask option. and was somewhat dismayed at how much stuff was installed for it. (I hadn't realized how much of an all-in-one application suite it was) In any case it was way too much overkill for something I was only going to use for facebook... Then I was even more disappointed when I realized that equo remove only removed seamonkey itself. And all I could remember of the stuff that was installed was that when equo downloaded the files in aggregated bundles of 3, it started with something like "1 of 9".

It might be that none of the browsers I installed and removed have anything to do with my startx problem. But it was right after that that my lady made me shut down and spend some time with her. And this morning it was broken...

I'm not sure what I gotta do to get back the dri, dri2, & synaptics modules. Nor whether or not the missing font dirs are important. To be honest, I think I should just say that I don't have a clue how to fix this!

Please help...

my xorg.conf can be found at:

http://pastebin.com/hd4jb94D

The Xorg.0.log from the first startx failure (when I was still using the x86_64-3.0.0 kernel) can be found at:

http://pastebin.com/ZzM7QBXx

The Xorg.0.log from the last startx failure (using the x86_64-3.3.0 kernel) can be found at:

http://pastebin.com/iHSPQVFM

Thanks!
--
joe3

[Fitzcarraldo]

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Failed to load module "dri" (module does not exist, 0)
Failed to load module "dri2" (module does not exist, 0)

Those two messages are normal for the closed-source NVIDIA driver, and harmless. The closed-source NVIDIA driver does not use the open-source dri and dri2 modules, it loads its own software. You can get rid of the first of those error messages by simply commenting out the following line in your xorg.conf file.

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Load   "dri"

You should be able to get rid of both those error messages by replacing the above line with:

Code: Select all

Disable   "dri"
Disable   "dri2"

Regarding your non-functioning Synaptics touchpad:

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Failed to load module "synaptics" (module does not exist, 0)

do you have the package xf86-input-synaptics installed? If not, install it, as that is what installs the Synaptics X-Windows driver module.

One of the lines in the ServerLayout section of my xorg.conf is for my Synaptics touchpad:

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InputDevice    "SynapticsTouchpad" "SendCoreEvents"

and my xorg.conf also contains the following section which can be tailored to a specific touchpad:

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Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier  "SynapticsTouchpad"
        Driver      "synaptics"
        Option      "AlwaysCore" "true" # send events to CorePointer
        Option      "Device" "/dev/psaux"
        Option      "Protocol" "auto-dev"
        Option      "SHMConfig" "false" # configurable at runtime? security risk
        Option      "LeftEdge" "1700" # x coord left
        Option      "RightEdge" "5300" # x coord right
        Option      "TopEdge" "1700" # y coord top
        Option      "BottomEdge" "4200" # y coord bottom
        Option      "FingerLow" "25" # pressure below this level triggers release
        Option      "FingerHigh" "30" # pressure above this level triggers touch
        Option      "MaxTapTime" "180" # max time in ms for detecting tap
        Option      "VertEdgeScroll" "true" # enable vertical scroll zone
        Option      "HorizEdgeScroll" "true" # enable horizontal scroll zone
        Option      "CornerCoasting" "true" # enable continuous scroll with finger in corner
        Option      "CoastingSpeed" "0.30" # corner coasting speed
        Option      "VertScrollDelta" "100" # edge-to-edge scroll distance of the vertical scroll
        Option      "HorizScrollDelta" "100" # edge-to-edge scroll distance of the horizontal scroll
        Option      "MinSpeed" "0.10" # speed factor for low pointer movement
        Option      "MaxSpeed" "0.60" # maximum speed factor for fast pointer movement
        Option      "AccelFactor" "0.0020" # acceleration factor for normal pointer movements
        Option      "VertTwoFingerScroll" "true" # vertical scroll anywhere with two fingers
        Option      "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "true" # horizontal scroll anywhere with two fingers
        Option      "TapButton1" "1"
        Option      "TapButton2" "2"
        Option      "TapButton3" "3"
EndSection

As far as your problem with the closed-source NVIDIA driver, which is actually your most serious problem, someone else will have to respond as I mainly have AMD ATI GPUs.

EDIT: Your Xorg.0.log file shows you don't have the evdev module loading either. The X-Windows driver xf86-input-evdev supersedes the X-Windows drivers xf86-input-keyboard and xf86-input-mouse. Do you have it installed?

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equo install xf86-input-evdev
equo remove xf86-input-mouse
equo remove xf86-input-keyboard

[joe3]

First things first. You do I hope realize that If I were to properly thank you for your prompt, detailed, and highly useful reply, I'd probably be accused of "hero worship"...
So I guess I'll just say:

"I've got my X server back... THANKS!"

Code: Select all

Failed to load module "dri" (module does not exist, 0)

Failed to load module "dri2" (module does not exist, 0)

Those two messages are normal for the closed-source NVIDIA driver, and harmless. The closed-source NVIDIA driver does not use the open-source dri and dri2 modules, it loads its own software. You can get rid of the first of those error messages by simply commenting out the following line in your xorg.conf file.

Code: Select all

Load   "dri"

You should be able to get rid of both those error messages by replacing the above line with:

Code: Select all

Disable   "dri"

Disable   "dri2"

Well at least they are "harmless".
I followed the above instructions, but about 4 lines after the new Xorg.0.log says they won't be loaded, it now also says:

Code: Select all

[    55.120] (II) "dri" will be loaded even though the default is to disable it.
[    55.120] (II) "dri2" will be loaded even though the default is to disable it.


and then of course when it actually tries, it complains. But now that I know it's "harmless" I no longer care...

Regarding your non-functioning Synaptics touchpad:

Well here I gotta say that I always wondered why that driver was ever called for on this Desktop. But since most of the automatically configured xorg.conf files that were generated during the initial install/configuration of the assorted Linux distro's on this machine wanted to load it, I figured that maybe it wasn't only used for the touchpad that this desktop don't have and I left it be...

I'm keeping a link to your instructions for it though just in case I might need it for my touchpad equipped laptop...

As far as your problem with the closed-source NVIDIA driver, which is actually your most serious problem, someone else will have to respond as I mainly have AMD ATI GPUs.

This to, is no longer a problem... I have no idea what happened to the old nvidia driver, But once I installed the newer one, the thing that stopped X was a lack of working input devices. And you gave me the clue I needed below...

EDIT: Your Xorg.0.log file shows you don't have the evdev module loading either. The X-Windows driver xf86-input-evdev supersedes the X-Windows drivers xf86-input-keyboard and xf86-input-mouse. Do you have it installed?

Well I do now!
And fortunately one of my other installed Linux had a good generic 10-evdev.conf file I could copy...

So while the Xorg.0.log still squeaks about some things that don't really matter, X is up and running nicely...

Thanks again!

--
Joe3

[Fitzcarraldo]

You're welcome. Good to know it's working again.