Xorg Server Failing to Startup

Question

I am having difficulty starting up the Xorg server within my Gentoo installation. I set it up via The X Server Configuration HOWTO. When I get to the part where I startx, the screen flickers a bit, and then it drops me back into the terminal with the following message:

[some stuff here]
(EE) Failed to load module "vesa" (module does not exist, 0)
(EE) Failed to load module "fbdev" (module does not exist, 0)
FATAL: COuld not load /lib/modules/2.6.35-gentoo-r12/modules.dep: No such file or directory

Two things that are weird to me - I am not using vesa or fbdev drivers. I am using intel and evdev in my /etc/make.conf. Secondly, I don't use modules in my kernel. I specifically remove them. This hasn't caused a problem before. I'm not really sure what is going on.

Solution

I am using intel and evdev in my /etc/make.conf

That means that xorg will be compiled with intel and evdev support :)
Xorg doesn't read your make.conf, it tries to guess your hardware if there's no xorg.conf and it looks like it can't guess your hardware.

emerge sys-apps/lshw sys-apps/pciutils
and look for UNCLAIMED and DISABLED devices in lshw output. lspci can also be usefull.

Try running:

X -configure

Then customize (put correct driver in appropriate place in) it's output ~/xorg.conf.new and use it as your xorg.conf

I generally don't use modular kernel

That doesn't matter in this case, but that means that you can't load module with parameters, which sometimes useful.

Comments

[Admin]

Have you installed the correct drivers for your card? Im no xorg expert but I would think that if xorg was trying to load vesa, it did not find the intel drivers...

[Admin]

@Stefan - I believe I did. I have an integrated Intel chip (on an old laptop) and it's the same driver that is used during the setup process. (And, video up to this point seems to be working...just not video inside Xorg.)

[Admin]

The "vesa" and "fbdev" modules listed are Xorg server modules, not kernel modules. They are .so files found in /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers and are the fallbacks Xorg automatically tries if the specific driver module for your screen can't be loaded.

[JasCav]

Yeah, I considered that. I generally don't use a modular kernel - I build everything into the kernel. Does it have to be modular for this to work?