MEPIS Community Forum

This has happened 4 times in the last 24 hours. I close a window, and suddenly my screen turns all black with white vertical lines. The keyboard is dead. Other computers can't ping this one. It looks like a complete crash.

This all began with the update to xserver-xorg-core. I had to run sgfxi to be able to have a desktop. I ran sgfxi a second time but it still happened.

I assume this is a new problem in the ATI driver. I have a Radeon 3450.
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Is there a log file somewhere that might give me a clue why the system crashed?

Besides going out to the store and buying an inexpensive NVDIA card, any suggestion what I can do to make my system stable again? This is the machine that I make my living from, and this is the first time in 5 years of running Linux + Mepis that I feel -- well -- worried.

Thanks!

The older xorg packages are still preserved at snapshot.debian.org, and possibly could be reinstalled and pinned. Do you have a Synaptic history of which updates caused the issue?

... and you don't have a system backup?

There are many people who have reported major difficulties following the recent xserver-xorg-core upgrade. Reinstalling the graphics driver seems to be the cure. But since you've already tried that and your system is still unstable, follow Stevo's advice and see if you can revert to the older version of xserver-xorg-core. If that works, then pin the package ... and start making system backups.

you might have to back-out to a previous video-driver, did the versions change?

try /var/log/Xorg.0.log looking for Ws and EEs. you could always change it back to vesa for awhile, i think.

best of luck

zero experience here with ati, flgrx, sorry.

I have a backup, but only make one every 1 or 2 weeks and I hate losing stuff done since the last backup. I know I should learn RSYNC ...

I went to the computer store, bought an NVIDIA compatible card for $39 (with a $10 rebate), and it is working great.

Sometimes, it's just not worth figuring out a problem if you can avoid it. Thanks for the help -- Mepis Land is full of great and helpful people!

Take a look at grsync. I think that's the name. It's a gnome app that gives a usable GUI to rsync. A bootable LiveCD of CloneZilla does the job fairly well also. I like the tools on the PartedMagic LiveCD. It includes both of the above.