dell latitude C810 FC2 graphical exit unclean

[John McBride]

Hi,

After upgrading a Dell Latitude C810 notebook from RH9 to FC2 I see that 
X will not shut down cleanly. Running X makes it impossible to ever get 
console/text mode again. The display is unreadable and heavily 
pixelated, as though it is zoomed in on a small area of the screen. 
Switching to any console (ctrl-alt-<F1-F5>) shows the same garbage. The 
keyboard and commands still work. If I type "startx", X comes again just 
fine. I have tried yum updates to last monday's level, and also the 6116 
nvidia driver (I think that's the number, I got it yesterday).

Also, on installation, ddcprobe could not retrieve the LCD display 
values. I had to set it via system-config-display to "Generic LCD 
1600x1200". The chipset is correct as "Gforce 2 Go". The X upgrade did 
not complete properly, leaving /etc/X11/X pointing to 
/use/X11R6/bin/XFree86. (corrected).

Also, the docking station and KVM were much more reliable under RH9. 
Accidently leaving the notebook "switched" to the CRT setting and 
rebooting into X makes the mouse go insane with FC2--no amount of 
"system-config-mouse" will correct it.

The current workaround for the X exit problem is just to type "startx" 
again on the active keyboard and then shut the machine down properly.

The current workaround for docked mode is:
1) Always insure the notebook is set to "LCD" (local display and mouse) 
when booting.
2) Always boot to runlevel 3.
3) Once in text mode, hotkey to external KVM, if docked.
4) Run "system-config-mouse" and "system-config-display".
5) startx
(don't try to get to a console from X)

---
John