X problem on Ultra 2

[rayv]

Hi all,
I have an unusual problem with X on my Ultra 2.

Background:

machine:
Ultra 2, 640 MB memory, 2x300 mhz processors, 2 x 9 GB drives, 12x CDrom, Up-to-date OBP

me:
first time using gentoo; several years experience with Sun Ultras (1,2,30,60) using Solaris 8,9; several years using linux on x86

so far:
emerged kernel 2.4.26 for sparc64 - no errors in dmesg, both procs recognized;

emerged XFree86, functioning config file - XFree86.0.log shows no errors (warning about Open APM failed [/dev/apm_bios] (No such file or directory);
dmesg reports:
[drm] Initialized ffb 0.0.1 200000517 on minor 0
ffb0: Detected FFB2/horizontal
sunmouse: Successfully adjusted to 1200 baud
startx works (mostly) - keyboard and mouse function properly, twm opens a couple of apps including xterm, but the background is black. I seem to remember some sort of background with other distros on x86.

emerged kde and gnome - neither works
xdm, kdm, gdm don't work. rc.conf with xdm as the display manager -upon boot it says xdm starts but gives no indication of prolems (no error messages) but nothing happens. It continues with the regular text-based login prompt. Manually running xdm returns no error, but nothing happens.

startkde returns:
xset: unable to open display ""
xsetroot: unable to open display ' '
startkde: Starting up...
startkd: Running kpersonalizer...
kwin: cannot connect to X server
kpersonalizer: cannot connect to X server
kpersonalizer: cannot connect to X server
kpersonalizer: cannot connect to X server
(keeps repeating the last line until I <Ctrl> <C>)

When in twm, I can open other apps from xterm, but, for example:
xclock &
Xlib: extension "RENDER" missing on display ":0.0".

xclock continues to open. I can even run mozilla by starting it from an xterm and it seems to function normally.

It seems as though some display environment variable isn't set somewhere, but that is just a guess. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Ray

[Drunkula]

I have a nearly identical system to what you described and had no problems. But then again I didn't try to config XFree myself this time. I grabbed the Ultra10 with Creator3d config from http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm/configs/xf86config/ and that worked as is.

TWM worked properly (with the default non-black root window). Then I emerged Fluxbox and it starts up quite nicely after creating a .xinitrc file to run it.

Give that config above a try and see if that helps.