407735 – [feature-request] X.org X Server auto-fallback to VESA / fbdev

Bug 407735 - [feature-request] X.org X Server auto-fallback to VESA / fbdev

Summary: [feature-request] X.org X Server auto-fallback to VESA / fbdev

Status:	RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 246158

Alias:	None

Product:	openSUSE 11.1
Classification:	openSUSE
Component:	X.Org (show other bugs)
Version:	Factory
Hardware:	Other Other

Priority:	P5 - None Severity: Enhancement with 1 vote (vote)
Target Milestone:	---
Assignee:	Stefan Dirsch
QA Contact:	E-mail List

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Reported:	2008-07-09 20:28 UTC by Alexey Eremenko
Modified:	2008-07-09 22:31 UTC (History)
CC List:	0 users

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Description Alexey Eremenko 2008-07-09 20:28:09 UTC

GNU/Linux in general and openSUSE in particular lacks one fundamental piece of stability. One that MS Windows always had similar feature since 1995 and maybe even before that.

Namely: X Server
X.org - it has no auto-fallback/safe mode in case of failure. It drives out many newbie users.

X Server may fail due to several problems:
-Video Card replaced with another one
-Kernel upgraded, but video driver was not. (esp. Nvidia)
-Overclocked GPU
-Incorrect X.org config file by user
-Broken video driver

In every case, X.org X Server has several "generic" drivers, that are not video-card specific:
-vga
-vesa
-fbdev

Ubuntu has something, that they call "Bullet-Proof X", but I never tried it.

In any case openSUSE needs a solution, that will have X server up and running no-matter-what-happens.

The trick is to detect the problematic cases, and fallback to one of the generic X.org drivers, should primary configuration fail.

This will allow one *big* advantage: User will be able to configure his system properly from GUI/Yast/Sux, without entering CLI.

We need either to use Ubuntu's technology, or build something to fill the void.

-Alexey "Technologov", 9.7.2008.

Comment 1 Stefan Dirsch 2008-07-09 22:31:43 UTC

Plese use the new graphical failsafe mode.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 246158 ***