RH8.0 X server self-destructs!

RH8.0 X server self-destructs!

Post by wall » Sun, 12 Jan 2003 00:07:24



I've never seen such a thing on Linux before.  Looks like Redhat
may have finally caught up with Microsoft.

I've no clue what is going on here, but its happened on three
very different systems, multiple times:

Dual Pentium-Pro200 with ATI Rage II video card.
PIII-500 with GeForce2 video
P4 Celeron 1.8G with Matrox G200 video.

Basically I'm using X and things seem to work.  I logout of X
(runlevel 3 is my default) and eventually when I use X again with
startx it will have self-destructed putting up empty or
unreadable error dialog boxes.  Killing it with Ctrl-Alt-BS is
all I can do.

The only way I've been able to fix it is on one of the other
systems I did tar -cpf Xfix.tar .g* .met*  and ftp'd the tar file
to the broken system where after tar -xpf Xfix.tar  X works
again.  I first discovered this by restoring the home directory
from backup and noting that this fixed the X server problem, then
when it happened again I starting restoring just what I thought
was the gnome directories.

At first I thought it was a buggy screensaver module, but I've
seen this self-destruction when running X as root where the
screensaver doesn't work.

All RedHat patches available as of 28DEC02 have been installed.
Basically the machines are file servers and seem very reliable in
this role.  I use X mostly to try a few new  things -- like Xine
or Kino that I'm intrested in, but aren't yet where they'd be
really useful to me -- or run xcdroast to backup the key data
directories.  Running or not running xcdroast doesn't seem to
correlate with the last working X session.

--wally.

 
 
 

RH8.0 X server self-destructs!

Post by k.. » Sun, 12 Jan 2003 01:11:52



> I've never seen such a thing on Linux before.  Looks like Redhat
> may have finally caught up with Microsoft.

> I've no clue what is going on here, but its happened on three
> very different systems, multiple times:

> Dual Pentium-Pro200 with ATI Rage II video card.
> PIII-500 with GeForce2 video
> P4 Celeron 1.8G with Matrox G200 video.

> Basically I'm using X and things seem to work.  I logout of X
> (runlevel 3 is my default) and eventually when I use X again with
> startx it will have self-destructed putting up empty or
> unreadable error dialog boxes.  Killing it with Ctrl-Alt-BS is
> all I can do.

Is your name resolution setup correctly? X can throw fits if either DNS
or the hosts files have incorrect entries. Are you using a common window
manager among all three machines?

I'm running RH80 on several machine using similar cards without problem.

Quote:

> The only way I've been able to fix it is on one of the other
> systems I did tar -cpf Xfix.tar .g* .met*  and ftp'd the tar file
> to the broken system where after tar -xpf Xfix.tar  X works
> again.  I first discovered this by restoring the home directory
> from backup and noting that this fixed the X server problem, then
> when it happened again I starting restoring just what I thought
> was the gnome directories.

Possibly a corrupt preferencesin Gnome?

 
 
 

1. self-destructing x sessions

On my SCO FastStart (fast my arse!) system, X sessions from the
console self-destruct after one or two minutes and I am tossed
back to the login screen.  This happens whatever the particular
userid so it does not seem likely that it is related to
individual user session settings.  I have dropped back to VGA
resolution thinking that it might be a video problem, but this
has not helped.

The problem <may> have appeared after I let scoadmin make a
thorough system check, but I am not sure.  In any event, the
check shows no current discrepancies.

What do I look at, read, etc., to try to find out what is going
on?  I've checked sco on-line sources without finding anything
about general x trouble shooting.  Obviously, if my X sessions
keep going teats up every minute or two, it is exceedingly
difficult to read the on-line documentation....

--

Earl H. Kinmonth, Kanji Users Service Operation (KUSO!),
University of Sheffield, Sheffield, England S10 2UJ

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5. Linux self destructs

6. Expand FS

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