Parallels 8/Centos 6.5: Deleted Parallels tools, now X doesn't start

A freshly installed VM will support X and so installing and then removing Parallels Tools should not in itself cause X to cease working. I am guessing that Parallels tools overwrites some other files and that removal breaks X.

Does anybody know what I have to reconfigure or reinstall to get back to a non-Parallels, X window system on centos? xorg.conf refers to some parallels names for instance. (To avoid the obvious suggestions, I have reinstalled "X Window System".)

 

Not sure about where to find and revert all left-over changes applied by the agent, but since you mention `xorg.conf`, you might as well start there. I suggest you check out the `-configure` switch to `Xorg`.

Code:

-configure
               When this option is specified, the Xorg server loads all  video
               driver  modules,  probes for available hardware, and writes out
               an initial xorg.conf(5) file based on what was detected.   This
               option  currently  has  some problems on some platforms, but in
               most cases it is a good way to bootstrap the configuration pro-
               cess.   This option is only available when the server is run as
               root (i.e, with real-uid 0).

You may also want to look at the CENTOS spec file and patches for the X server to see if they do anything fancier out-of-the-box.
Good luck.
PS: Of course, you can also (a) reinstall the guest or (b) give in and reinstall the agent using the CURSES interface without X, but these are things you're most likely trying to avoid.

 

Thank you, I had tried this but forgot to note it above. The configuration process fails, it can't find a suitable screen (Parallels must fake this using something which is now deleted).

 

Shame. xdpyinfo / xrandr show anything useful? Did you check out the /var/log/Xorg.0.log?

 

Both return no display "". I can't install parallel tools without X because it seems to rely on some graphical confirmation!! (Why would you do that?)

However, I looked at another VM with parallel tools mounted and it mounted /dev/sr0 so I clicked on install parallel tools and mounted /dev/sr0 from where I could run the install and we are now back with a graphical system.

Thanks very much for your help and interest.

 

Oh well, that didn't last long. Centos updated itself to 6.6 and now X has stopped working again.

 

Yeah, I had trouble with this one also. Actually, the agent seldom works after X upgrades in my experience, so you always have to update it or reinstall it outside of X. I've never seen such breakage that I couldn't even log in a VT to do that, though seeing the display manager fail to start is always a scary thing.

 

Could you explain? startx fails with 2 errors, can't find the right version of glx and (I suspect more seriously) can't find the prlvideo module.

 

I believe the prlvideo driver is installed as part of the Parallels agent setup. If it can't find it, then you should probably reinstall the agent as I mentioned above.
Reading your posts again I get the feeling you might not realize that you can do this without X (sorry if I'm wrong, ignore the rest).
To do this, insert the virtual Parallels Tool CD, and mount it anywhere using a virtual terminal:

Code:

# mount /dev/cdrom /mnt

Inside, you can find the install-gui executable but also an install shell script. Use that one, it's interactive.

Code:

# /mnt/install

If you've done this already, then verify that the /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/prlvideo_drv.so lib exists. If not, the installer somehow breaks. If it is there, then keep looking; you mention error reporting from the startx program, does the Xorg.0.log file tells the same story?
Good luck.

 

I did mount the parallels tools cd and run install, it takes a very long time but at the end the prlvideo_drv.so file is not in that location. The remarks about absent glx and prlvideo came from Xorg.0.log.

Interestingly in the /var/log/parallels-tools-install.log file the only reference to prlvideo is deletion presumably during historic tool reinstalls so I can't even find a record of what caused it not to be present.

 

Indeed the process is usually very long; I've never investigated the reasons, though I suspect it's simply because it needs to recompile its kernel modules using DKMS.
In any case, my parallels-tools-install.log only lists removals too, yet the file is definitely present on my filesystem, so the lack of "add" log entries shouldn't be alarming.
You evidently know your way around, so I'm not sure that I could help further. I'd probably probe the Parallels guys at this point.

 

Hm, thanks very much for your interest anyway. Oddly(?) Centos 7 is still fine with parallels. The Parallels guys clearly aren't interested in Parallels 8, they've had plenty opportunity to offer suggestions if they wanted to.

 

Oh, I kind of forgot you were using Parallels 8 until you just mentioned it in your last post. I'm using Parallels 10, so there is a somewhat strong possibility that this is where the Parallels Tools differ in behavior during install. I think Parallels 8 is still supported though, have you opened a support ticket?
In any case, I'd try to setup a fresh install on the side if you haven't yet done so, just to verify that it has to do with the agent upgrade process (leftovers, ...). Also if you can, upgrading to the latest Parallels version is probably not a bad idea.
And yes, it's a bit ironic that CentOS 7 would run fine, though I don't know if this line has seen an X upgrade yet (I'm not using it yet). So probably not *that* odd if not.