How to startx with “-logverbose 6” arguments?

Question

How do I pass the -logverbose 6 arguments to startx? It is necessary for submitting a bug report to Nvidia Support.

Answer 1

I like fossfreedom's answer but it isn't what I have done in the past. It might work but I'm not sure keeping the old X instance around is a good thing. Here's what I would do:

After Ubuntu loads to a graphical desktop, drop back to a TTY, log in and run:

sudo stop gdm   # lightdm instead of gdm on 11.10
sudo startx -logverbose 6

It's practically the same, you're just cleaning up the old instance of X before you run the debug instance.

Answer 2

I know this is an old question, but I kept hitting it via Google. If you're using a newer Ubuntu that uses lightdm, you can edit /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf and add this line under [SeatDefaults]:

xserver-command=X -logverbose 6

(Presumably other display managers have similar facilities to control how they start X, you'd want to check their documentation.)

When you reboot, your normal X log file will now have verbose data. You can add any other command line arguments you need there, as well.

Source: zless /usr/share/doc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.gz via Is there a list of all the possible configuration options for lightdm?

Answer 3

Choose a TTY to login i.e. CTRL + ALT + F1

Login as yourself

Then type

sudo -i

to login as root.

I imagine nvidia asked you to run nvidia-bug-report.sh

then you can startx

startx -- -logverbose 6 :2

i.e. this will attempt to start a new X display on TTY 2.