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To: dillon ross <casp_semper@yahoo.com>
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From: Lowell Gilbert <freebsd-questions-local@be-well.ilk.org>
Date: 25 Nov 2003 09:02:08 -0500
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Subject: Re: help, i'm a newbie
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Please don't top-post, and a carriage return every 70 characters or so
of text wouldn't go amiss either.

dillon ross <casp_semper@yahoo.com> writes:

> that didn't seem to help much or i'm doing something terribly
> wrong. i did try to reconfigure x-server and went to xdesktop to
> choose default desktop (no other config opts.). when i run startx i
> get blank screen akin. typing afterstep at the command prompt gives
> the error msg. "can't open display.". i'm doing all of this on my
> laptop, with silicon motion graphics lynx em+ graphics card. is
> there a min on the video ram that kde or any such need to operate?

Your problem doesn't appear to be with KDE.  It's with getting X
running itself.  I've got (I think; it isn't booted at the moment) the
same kind of graphics controller in a laptop myself, and I configured
it with xf86cfg, if I recall correctly.  

Look at the logs that X leaves behind when it starts up -- and what it
prints to the console you started it from.  startx is the right way to
start it from the command line.