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:

Installing/upgrading

The meta-package xorg is nice:

aptitude install -t unstable xorg

Missing xserver-xorg

Some people have reported that xserver-xorg is removed upon upgrade. While this issue is being worked out, if your X server mysteriously refuses to start, be sure to check to see that this package is actually installed.

Check your /etc/apt/sources.list and make sure you have deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib listed. The old http://amd64.debian.net/debian-pure64/ repositories are obsolete and is one possible reason that some people are reporting that xserver-xorg is removed on the dist-upgrade. Do *NOT* do the upgrade if xserver-xorg is going to be removed as part of the upgrade or you will not be able to start KDM/X afterwards.

Missing Drivers

(EE) No Input driver matching `$foo'

Now that all the drivers are packaged separately, you may need to install some extra packages. The simplest way to do this is to install the xserver-xorg-video-all and xserver-xorg-input-all packages or the xorg metapackage. Alternatley, 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

Please Note: If you experience this bug when xserver-xorg-core version 1:1.0.2-5 is installed, report it to the ["XStrikeForce"] with reportbug. Thanks!

(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.

Another reason X can't find the fixed font is your font.alias file may be missing (it's in your fontpath). It may have gotten removed if your dist-upgrade removes xserver-org. If you do a "man mkfontdir", you'll see what format it has to be in. The X server needs either a font or aliases for "fixed" and "cursor" in order to start up. More help can be found here: [http://xorg.freedesktop.org/wiki/FAQErrorMessages#head-a570197d15005a2c71cbb5e565114e2c04a573a3 Xorg-FAQ]. If you have unknown parametr errors with update-font-dir, you may have that file in /usr/local/sbin and /usr/sbin (the newest is in /usr/sbin); remove the update* files in /usr/local/sbin.

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. Note that the paths for fonts and the modules should not be an issue as of xserver-xorg-core 1:1.0.2-6. If you encounter this issue when this version of the server or greater is installed, please report a bug against the xserver-xorg-core package using reportbug.

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.

gdm

If the gdm display manager does not start the X server, make sure that /etc/gdm/gdm.conf contains the line command=/usr/bin/Xorg -audit 0 instead of command=/usr/X11R6/bin/X -audit 0 in the [server-Standard] section.

wdm? xdm?

Anyone know whether these still work? The modularized version of xdm has probably been updated to work automatically, right?

wdm is working fine, people may edit /etc/X11/wdm/Xservers to update the server path from /usr/bin/X11/X to /usr/bin/Xorg

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.

You might have problems using an external monitor when using the nvidia binary drivers on a laptop. If so, try adding this line to the Device section in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

If using module assistant to install the nvidia drivers try switching to the free driver, nv, while the issues are worked out. You can do this by editing xorg.conf.

ati binary drivers (on amd64)

The ati drivers (as generated by ati's installer pack) seem to suffer from the same problems as the nvidia ones: it still puts its libGL into /usr/X11R6/lib, while all executables use the libGL in /usr/lib. I don't know of an easy fix at the moment, except for some manual hacking in ati's unpacked driver pack.

The driver itself will work (if ?ModulePath "/usr/X11R6/lib/modules" is added to Xorg.conf), but it won't do anything relating to GL.

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.

Missing manpages

There are currently no manpages installed for things like xorg.conf and evdev. This is currently being tracked as [http://bugs.debian.org/362489 Bug #362489]