Is this a framebuffer problem?

[beebelo]

I've been running Ubuntu for several months, but wanted to try Debian, so I installed Sarge. At the very end (after all packages were done installing), at a console login screen (not gdm), the video became very unhappy. The login prompt displays for 2 seconds, then the monitor kind poofs and goes black, then it trys again, etc. I quickly shut off the system and rebooted. Same thing happened.

Is this probably a framebuffer problem? Several things are strange about this: 1) Before I exited the installer I opened a console for a minute to change the default OS in Grub. No problems at that time. 2) While Sarge is booting it doesn't look like frame buffer. There's no splash, and the text is big, like the default console text.

What should I look for, to fix this? Everything else is fine, and this doesn't occur until the bootup gets to the log in, but note I'm talking about the terminal login, not gdm or X.

Thank you.

[dnusinow]

It sounds like gdm is trying to load X several times and failing. If you let it fail a few times (like 5 or so if I recall correctly) it'll drop you in to console. You can reconfigure X (dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86) and use startx to try and get it working. If you can't do that, grab your X logfile (/var/log) and configuration (/etc/X11/XF86Config-4) so you can get someone to help you debug the problem.

[Guest]

Hey, you were right. If I waited long enough, I got a message that told me it failed to start X, then offered to show me the log. I was missing fonts. I think I'm good to go now.

Thanks!

[beebelo]

...I just assumed, since I was in the act of posting, that I was logged in. That is me up above...