startx won't start X server / can't start xfce4

[loderatum]

Hello, I'm new to Gentoo and I'm trying to get an xfce desktop environment running. I'm finding the "startx" command won't start the X server, and it looks like the intel driver isn't loading.

I chose the systemd Desktop profile at install time, and some time later I switched to the default/linux/amd64/23.0/desktop/plasma/systemd (stable) profile, as I hoped installing Plasma instead of xfce would work better.

The machine is an HP Pavilion dv4 laptop.

Output of lspci: http://0x0.st/X0GL.txt

If I try putting exec startxfce4 in my .xinitrc file, or enter that from the command line, I get this output:
xinit: giving up
xinit: unable to connect to X server: Connection refused
xinit: server error
Couldn't get a file descriptor referring to the console.

Here are the contents of ~/.local/share/xorg/Xorg.0.log https://0x0.st/X0GQ.0.log

I found this part noteworthy:
[ 8701.362] (II) LoadModule: "intel"
[ 8701.362] (WW) Warning, couldn't open module intel
[ 8701.362] (EE) Failed to load module "intel" (module does not exist, 0)

Contents of /etc/portage/make.conf https://0x0.st/X0Ge.conf

I have the VIDEO_CARDS variable set to "intel"

Output of emerge --info xorg-server https://0x0.st/X0Gu.bin

Output of emerge --info https://0x0.st/X0Gp.bin

I have seen several guides that talk about configuring kernel options, but I'm using a distribution kernel, and it gives me a warning not to manually run 'make menuconfig', so I'm not sure what to do with that.

Here are the contents of /usr/src/linux/.config https://0x0.st/XUtc.txt

Can anyone let me know what I'm missing?

[eccerr0r]

Did you re-emerge xorg-drivers after changing VIDEO_CARDS/USE (emerge --oneshot xorg-drivers) ?

If unsure, try equery uses xorg-drivers to see what's been built or not.
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Intel Core i7 2700K/Radeon R7 250/24GB DDR3/256GB SSD
What am I supposed watching?

[loderatum]

I hadn't tried that, but I have now! It didn't seem to do anything, the output of 'equery uses xorg-drivers' was the same before and after: https://0x0.st/X05a.txt

I see it has a + by video_cards_intel and input_devices_libinput.

[eccerr0r]

The modules should show up in /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers ... are they there now?

Re-post your new Xorg.0.log -- and check the timestamp of ~/.local/share/xorg/Xorg.0.log to make sure it's actually being updated, mine is ancient on a systemd machine...
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Intel Core i7 2700K/Radeon R7 250/24GB DDR3/256GB SSD
What am I supposed watching?

[dmpogo]

[eccerr0r]

true that... though loderatum is running systemd, and that should have systemd-logind working... weird... and Xorg errors should be posted to journald...
_________________
Intel Core i7 2700K/Radeon R7 250/24GB DDR3/256GB SSD
What am I supposed watching?

[loderatum]

Something changed, and it's working now. I rebooted and tried startx again, and it worked this time.

After experimenting a lot to figure out what the difference was, I think I determined that the permissions issue dmpogo found was caused by trying to run startx from within a screen session. It seems to fail every time in that case.

It is also possible that I needed to re-emerge the xorg-drivers.

Thank you for the help everyone!

[eccerr0r]

hmm. very possible that things won't work if you started gnu-screen remotely or possibly even in a X terminal and then resumed on console that your current login would not have systemd-logind console permissions... but yes you should either run straight after login on console or within a display manager. With the gobs of memory on modern machines (1 GiB is a lot of RAM when you were working with trying to get X working on 4MiB) I always use a display manager nowadays (lightdm most likely, though I have a gdm box here and there)...
_________________
Intel Core i7 2700K/Radeon R7 250/24GB DDR3/256GB SSD
What am I supposed watching?