FreeBSD 5.2.1 won't run with ATI RADEON

[bobmc]

BrendaBPowers at aol.com wrote:
> Hello:
>
> I am new to Unix and purchased a copy of FreeBSD 5.2.1 from Fry's to begin 
> learning. FreeBSD is used at my work and I wish to learn the OS myself. 
Perhaps this is a political situation where person(s) at work who
already have BSD skills do not have the time to help or the organization
structure makes that unfeasible.  Anyway,  your initiative is commendable.
> After installation the 'startx' command will not start the GUI KDE. I get an 
> error message ' no screens found'.
>   
Assuming you have created an account for yourself,  create a ".xinitrc"
file in your directory with:-

    X &
    exec startkde

.. but the X server must be configured first from the root account.
> I have tried all the combinations of horizontal-vertical sync that are within 
> the range of my monitor but all fail. 
What do you mean by fail? It could be distorted display or none at all. 
Try  as root:-

X -configure    #creates a file prints on the console
cd     # root directory
X -config xorg.conf.new

If you can't move an X on the screeen with a mouse. Hit
ctrl-alt-backspace and try a change in xorg.conf.new

- in section Screen enter -   DefaultDepth 24
- in subsection Display under Depth 24
  enter Modes "1280x1024"

If ok, cp xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf

> Since I am completely new to Unix I do not know how to send you the log file. 
>
>   
That's ok, because X creates a big file

> I found that with Suse, if I installed 
> at the lowest resolution the OS would resolve the problem during the first boot 
> and reset the resolution to the max. size. FreeBSD does not do this.
>
> Can anyone help?
> Brenda Powers       
>   
Results depend upon the combination of your video card and monitor.
Recent Linux distributions feature a lot of scripts and daemon programs
to figure out all these combinations.  BSD stays relatively baggage-free
by asking you to do a few manual procedures which are usually
straight-forward.   -BobMc-