Re: New Installation: Missing Module 'fbdev'

On Sun, Mar 04, 2012 at 10:37:42AM +0000,
   Srdjan Todorovic wrote:
> You could take a look at /var/log/Xorg.0.log to see why it's
> not loading up the display / fbdev driver.

Rich's problem is solved, IIUC.

> I would also check lsmod and dmesg to verify that the fbdev
> driver did in fact load up correctly.

No, "fbdev" is the name of the X.org driver, not the Linux kernel 
driver. There are numerous Linux kernel framebuffer drivers, from 
vesafb for any VESA-compliant adapter, to hardware-specific drivers 
for many different adapters.

http://www.x.org/releases/X11R7.6/doc/man/man4/fbdev.4.xhtml

Note that this man page is not available in Slackware 13.x. The 
x/xf86-video-fbdev package was removed in the 13.0 development 
period, in a huge overhaul on Wed Jun 10 13:23:30 CDT 2009. The 
ChangeLog.txt only says "Removed" without explanation. It seems
Slackware no longer has this driver. From my own Xorg.0.log on a 
13.1-32bit:

(II) LoadModule: "fbdev"
(WW) Warning, couldn't open module fbdev
(II) UnloadModule: "fbdev"
(EE) Failed to load module "fbdev" (module does not exist, 0)

Interestingly enough, my own netbook, growing long in the tooth, 
manifests video problems with the intel(4) driver for its 915GM 
adapter. Yet its 100x37 (800x600x24) framebuffer console is always 
there for me. Fine for me since I usually want to work in console, 
but there are times I simply must have a GUI browser.

The symptoms: video in X works fine from boot time for awhile and 
begins to cut out. The screen goes mad and ends up in a shade of 
light blue. Before the last boot, startx would hang with a black 
screen and mouse pointer only. Reboot "fixed" it, but problems are 
recurring.

So I'm looking at choices of trying to fix what's going on with 
intel, or else switching to the vesa(4) driver. Acceleration isn't 
needed, but sometimes xrandr support might be wanted. My guess is 
that this intel option might help:
	Option "NoAccel" "yes"
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