can't set boot params or get X graphics screen in Trisquel mini

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experix
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Iscritto: 01/14/2014

I can boot computers with the Trisquel mini ISO CD, but adding "vga=792" onto the boot command line had no effect (this screen is practically unreadable in the high resolution mode that is used). And it gives me a bunch of text terminals, but no graphics screen. I have not tried the "install" choice on the startup menu. I want to get this to a point where I can show people what Linux offers, without making changes to their machine. Somebody needs to review this ISO. The instructions in there are vague, or are not working for some reason. Find a person who has little Linux experience and watch him try to run this thing, then fix it. Otherwise you are never going to attract Linux newbys.

sebelius
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Iscritto: 08/22/2013

If you're gonna be inside X11 while using it, why don't you just change the screen resolution with lxrandr or xrandr when it's booted up? I believe the option is 'Try Trisquel without installing' or something similar.

Though you could try VGA=ask to get an interactive list of supported graphic modes. (the VGA option only affects the Linux Console i believe, not X11)

Magic Banana

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Iscritto: 07/24/2010

Whenever you wrote "Linux", you actually meant "GNU/Linux": https://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html

Yes, that matters: https://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html

experix
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Iscritto: 01/14/2014

I apologize! for my penance I will stay after the bell and write "GNU/Linux" 100 times on the blackboard.

hckorootx
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Iscritto: 05/10/2011

Try:

# restart lxdm

experix
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Iscritto: 01/14/2014

I'm sorry, I should have been more clear. When I boot a computer with the Trisquel mini version 6.0.1 (32 bit) CD, there is no evidence that any X session exists. The output of 'ps -e' is login, acpid, cron, atd, NetworkManager, mdadm, bash (6), polkitd, ondemand, sleep, login, ttm-swap, udevd (2), ps. I have tried running 'sudo telinit 3' and some things in /etc that look like they should be related to the X display, but there still no X session.

sebelius
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Iscritto: 08/22/2013

Then do
$ apt-get install xorg xinit
$ xinit

If it's a live CD, HDD space is not used, only RAM; No permanent change to the computer.

But are you sure you got the right ISO?
There's really no X11 when you boot, 'Try Trisquel without installing'.
I think that you may have confused 'NetInstall' with Trisquel-Mini. Because the Trisquel-Mini ISO should contain X11, physically. It even includes a desktop environment and a display manager.

If you're on the Trisquel-Mini LiveCD then
$ ls /usr/bin | grep openbox

should output i believe, as it comes pre-installed.

experix
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Iscritto: 01/14/2014

Thanks, Sebelius, I think we may be getting somewhere.
$ apt-get install xorg xinit
$ xinit
after this, in terminal 7 screen is all dark except for upper left rectangle about 1/4 screen, white, with bash prompt. The mouse makes a pointer on this screen and typing to the prompt is possible after pushing the right button with the pointer in the box.

The ISO download web page is trisquel.info/en/download and the file is
trisquel-mini-6.0.1_i686.iso, with size = 465567744, cksum = 3531934849

I used the first menu item, "Try Trisquel mini without installing"

/usr/bin/openbox is ELF, size 364012, and there are 5 shell scripts
called openbox-lxde and similar. I tried running a few of these. Result:
in the F2 text terminal,
Openbox-Message: Failed to open the display from the DISPLAY environment variable
(and printenv shows no such variable)
at the prompt on the F7 screen, running openbox-lxde gives
Openbox-Message: Unable to find a valid menufile "/var/lib/openbox/debian/menu.xml"
printenv shows DISPLAY=:0
/var/lib/openbox/ is an empty dir

If I reboot and do not download xorg xinit, the openbox command fails like before. Doing export DISPLAY=:0 does not change that.
The xinit command is not found.

Magic Banana

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Iscritto: 07/24/2010

You have the NetInstall version and have just installed X.Org with a very basic window manager; twm I guess: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twm

If you want the Trisquel Mini edition (with its LXDE desktop environment), you do not need to take the (correct) ISO and reinstall. You only need to execute the following command:
$ sudo apt-get install trisquel-mini trisquel-mini-recommended

If you only want Trisquel Mini's base and make your own choice of high-level applications (the Web browser, the email client, the PDF reader, the movie player, the RSS feed reader, etc.), then do not ask for the installation of "trisquel-mini-recommended" (only that of "trisquel-mini").

experix
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Iscritto: 01/14/2014

Magic Banana:
When I boot from the CD and do "sudo apt-get install trisquel-mini trisquel-mini recommended", it says both of those are up-to-date.
You say I have the "NetInstall version". Does that mean I should have selected a different ISO? Let's be clear on what I want to achieve: I want to have a reasonable selection of utilities and a GUI, so that I can demonstrate GNU/Linux to somebody with no experience of this.
Please clarify your meaning in "you do not need to take the (correct) ISO and reinstall". Do I have the correct ISO at this time? If so, how do I make it work?

hcktorootx:
When I boot from the CD and then type "restart lxdm" to the bash prompt in the F1 text terminal I get "restart: Unknown instance:"
When I do "sudo apt-get install xorg xinit" it installs these things; then when I do "xinit" it starts the X display in the F7 terminal. When I type "restart lxdm" to the bash prompt in there, I get a long message:

restart: Rejected send message, 1 matched rules; type="method call", sender=":1.11" (uid=999 pid=4366 comm="restart lxdm ") interface="com.ubuntu.Upstart0_6.Job" member="Restart" error name="(unset)" requested_reply="0" destination=com.ubuntu.Upstart" (uid=0 pid=1 com="/sbin/init"

If I do "sudo restart lxdm" I just get "restart: Unknown instance:"

Magic Banana

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Iscritto: 07/24/2010

I was wrong: you do have Trisquel Mini and, for some reason, the X server does not start. Do you want to keep the GNOME edition (since you reported it properly works) and, maybe, install LXDE on the top of it? Or do you want to fix you system (in which case the problem must first be discovered, probably by taking a look at /var/log/Xorg.0.log)?

experix
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Iscritto: 01/14/2014

I initially picked "mini" because I thought maybe if the ISO is smaller it means this has a better chance of running on old, memory-limited systems. Maybe that's completely misguided-- the download page could really use some comments on system requirements. I'll work with the gnome edition and let you know if problems arise. Thanks, all!

Magic Banana

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Iscritto: 07/24/2010

That is correct. However, I do not know what you call "memory-limited". The GNOME edition of Trisquel can happily run in 1 GB of RAM (although I would recommend 2 GB if you wish to run heavy applications in parallel, e.g., the Web browser and the word processor).

Trisquel Mini has default applications that consume less RAM. Nothing prevents you from installing and running them on top of the GNOME edition of Trisquel. You can even adopt the LXDE desktop (Trisquel Mini's lightweight alternative) instead of GNOME. You just need to install the "lxde" package (in the repository) and choose that desktop environment at the login screen.

experix
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Iscritto: 01/14/2014

I have just now tried the Gnome desktop version of the Trisquel CD (first choice under the 'download' tab). It gave me a desktop right away. So whatever the problem is with the 'mini' version, it sees to be limited to that. Magic Banana says I was trying the NetInstall version. I'm sure that's not true, since that one is 25 MB and what I downloaded before is 500+ MB.