VIDEO OF PROBLEM main bar wont stop blinking

[jjohndoe8]

hey. the bar at the bottom blinks a lot. how do i get it to stop? i took a vid. the vids here http://jon-h.com/linux/blink_knoppix.mp4
the stuff on the bar doesnt come on like start up buttons. i think its my laptop. does dell latitude cpx work on knoppix?

[Forester]

Hi jjohndos8 and welcome to the Knoppix forums.

See http://www.knoppix.net/forum/threads...Latitude-e6510.

Let's us know if you still have problems.

[jjohndoe8]

thanks. that was fast. i did
knoppix nomodeset xmodule=nv

knoppix xmodule=vesa

they didnt work. ill try more later. can you think of anything else

[Forester]

I watched your video. The Penguin has never looked so cool.

So the cheat code didn't fix the problem. Here's a few things I'd look at/try if this happened to me.

First ctrl-alt-F12 to get the syslog console. Any interesting error messages there ?

Second ctrl-alt-F2 to get a text console (with no flashing) and I'd have a look through the X server log:

less /var/log/Xorg.0.log

I'd want to know if there are any errors - lines starting with (EE).

I'd be looking to see what hardware it thinks I've got (something like)

(--) PCI:*(0:0:2:0_ 8086:0046:1462:1033 Intel Corporation ..... Graphics Controller

I'd be looking to see what drivers it loaded (did it ignore the cheatcode ?) and perhaps later unloaded:

(II) LoadModule: "intel"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/intel_drv.so

If it appears to have ignored the cheat code I'd want to check I type in what I think I typed in with:

cat /proc/cmdline

Next I'd go back to the flashing panel with ctrl-alt-F5 and I'd restart the X-server with ctrl-alt-bksp. I'd give it a few tries to see if that makes any difference.

I'd also try killing and restarting the lxpanel (that is what is blinking). It might be easiest to do this from the non-blinking console ctrl-alt-F2:

killall lxpanel
lxpanel &

and switch back to the desktop with ctrl-alt-F5.

i would also try starting lxpanel without the & in order to see what trace (and possibly error) messages it spits out.

I'd try the CD in another machine. I might also try burning another CD but this time at really low speed.

Let us know how you get on.

[craniumonempty]

I had the same problem of the taskbar/panel blinking with an old Dell Inspiron 8000 which lists "Card, Graphic, 32Mb, P41, Nvidia, MSI" as the video card. Basically it can't handle compiz, so I had to shut it down. Something like "nocomposite" in the boot options. I think I have "nomodeset nocomposite" for the boot options, but unsure if I needed the other one. It worked for me, but you'll lose all the fun windows breaking and flopping around.

[utu]

Try 'no3d', that works for me.

[Capricorny]

As utu says, no3d is the standard way to simplify graphics handling - it just disables compiz, and, in lots of use cases, is the only graphics parameter (cheatcode) necessary to enter. If you run compiz, but have problems, you may try to turn off all the features first, and then introduce them one by one, to see if you can get anything working well.