On 2006/04/11, ["Xorg"] version 7.0 was uploaded to unstable. This is a major change in the packaging, and is therefore a complex upgrade which is causing lots of problems for users. Here are some of the more common problems and how to solve them:

Missing Drivers

(EE) No Input driver matching `$foo'

Now that all the drivers are packaged separately, you may need to install some extra packages. When you get the above message, look for a package named like xserver-xorg*foo. You will almost definitely need to install:

And you are likely to need to install a xserver-xorg-video-foo driver for your video card.

Font path change

(EE) Unable to find default font: fixed

The xfonts-base package now installs fonts to /usr/share/fonts/X11/. You will need to edit your ?FontPath entries in /etc/X11/xorg.conf. /usr/lib/X11/fonts becomes /usr/share/fonts/X11/. Do the same change to all /usr/lib/ entries. $ ls /usr/share/fonts/X11/ to get a list of directories.

Also note that x11-common now conflicts with xfs, so you may want to remove the ?FontPath to unix/:7100.

Incorrect paths in xorg.conf

Please refer to /usr/share/doc/xserver-xorg-core/NEWS.Debian.gz. You may need to edit paths in your xorg.conf for fonts (see above), kbd data or modules.

Can't Load Modules

Errors about not being able to load modules (most notably glcore) can be fixed by removing the line to load them from your xorg.conf. This can be done automatically for non-customized config files by running dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg as root.

kdm

If the kdm display manager does not start the X server, make sure that /etc/kde3/kdm/kdmrc contains the line ServerCmd=/usr/bin/Xorg -br instead of ServerCmd=/usr/X11R6/bin/X -br.

nvidia (orig) binary drivers

If installing the original nvidia drivers from the nvidia.com drivers download page with the official driver script, use --x-module-path=/usr/lib/xorg/modules/. Otherwise not only the driver itself will be installed in /usr/X11R6/lib64/modules/drivers or /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers, but also the OpenGL libraries might not work.

DRI with i915

libmesa stops working after upgrade to 7.* of XOrg with i915 driver (and maybe some others). MESA in sid is too old. It is necessary to download new drivers from http://dri.freedesktop.org/snapshots/ and copy *_dri.so files to /usr/lib/dri/. This is [http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=359328 bug# 359328].

startkde

If 'startkde' refuses to load, copy /usr/lib/X11/xinit/xinitrc to ~/.xinitrc and open it in your favourite text editor; remove anything under the line # start some nice programs and add exec startkde &. Running 'startx' will give you your KDE back.