Very Computer

I gotten FreeBSD installed on my Dell C600 Laptop. I've gotten the Video
drivers configured correctly, and the sound card working (finally).

One real problem so far is that I've created a user account to log into
other that root, but when I try and startx while logged into this user
accout, I get a fatal server error. I have checked the /etc/group file and
made sure the user is part of the wheel group and i can login su from that
account, but still can't startx.

Probably just my newbiedumb brain not figuring it out, but I could sure use
some help.

Any help is appreciated.

Lee

PS - Without starting a flame war, what are the advantages/diadvantages to
running Linux vs BSD?

Congratulations :-)  Welcome to the club!

Quote:> One real problem so far is that I've created a user account to log into
> other that root, but when I try and startx while logged into this user
> accout, I get a fatal server error. I have checked the /etc/group file and
> made sure the user is part of the wheel group and i can login su from that
> account, but still can't startx.

Could you possibly tell us the error?  There's many ways for an X server to
die.  Perhaps you could also use a display manager, like wdm or xdm?

# -- snip snip -- #

Quote:> PS - Without starting a flame war, what are the advantages/diadvantages to
> running Linux vs BSD?

You get a really stable and secure system which is licensed under the BSD
licence as opposed to the GPL, but just happens to be a trifle more difficult
to learn.

I think that's the easiest way to sum it all up?

 - Philip

--

  The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the
  strong, but that's the way to bet.

Hello Newbie from a fellow newbie....  just started a couple of days
ago myself....

I struggled with my vidcards and the Xserver quite a bit... some
things that did help me

Try:

SuperProbe
(capital S and Capital P), this will tell you what your FreeBSD thinks
your video card is and other specifications of your card.

Then as root or your user account, su to root and run

/stand/sysinstall

Then go to Configure - Do post-install configuration of FreeBSD
XFree86 - Configure Xfree86 Server
2 - Fully Graphical XFree86 configuration tool.

Double check that the video card you have selected in there is the
correct one and then check the advanced settings to make sure that you
either at letting FreeBSD probe the specs or you have the specs set
correctly.  Then check your monitor to make sure you don't have it set
to Hz it can't handle or you aren't set to a color mode you can't
handle.

If everything looks right, hit done and it should try and launch the
Xserver to let you know if everything is set right....

Hmmm... I just realized that before I typed all that, I guess I should
have asked if you have tried to run startx from the root account and
if it works.

Also, have you installed a GUI?  KDE, Gnome or one of the others?

Quote:>I gotten FreeBSD installed on my Dell C600 Laptop. I've gotten the Video
>drivers configured correctly, and the sound card working (finally).

>One real problem so far is that I've created a user account to log into
>other that root, but when I try and startx while logged into this user
>accout, I get a fatal server error. I have checked the /etc/group file and
>made sure the user is part of the wheel group and i can login su from that
>account, but still can't startx.

>Probably just my newbiedumb brain not figuring it out, but I could sure use
>some help.

>Any help is appreciated.

>Lee

>PS - Without starting a flame war, what are the advantages/diadvantages to
>running Linux vs BSD?

Totally Jayynes

Is X (or rather /usr/X11R6/bin/XFRee86) setuid root ? AFAIK it has to be
to allow non-root users to start X.

  David Leemans
  ----------------------------------------------------------
  running Slackware 8.0, kernel 2.4.14 on i586
  4:02am up 10:15, 1 user, load average: 0.05, 0.05, 0.00

The error I'm getting after quite some time is

xauth: (argv):1:  bad display name "[computername]:0" in "list" command
xauth: (argv):1:  bad display name "[computername]:0" in "add" command

Fatal server error:
Cannot open log file "/var/log/XFree86.0.log"

When reporting problems....<blah-blah>

giving up.
xinit:  No such file or directory (errno 2): unable to connect to X server
xinit: No such process (errno 3): Server error.
xauth: (argv):1:  bad display name "[computername]:0" in "remove" command

Having said all that,... X works under root. Beautifully. 1024x768 res 24
bit color, sound, everything... I even get the same message (up to the
<blah-blah) at first start when I run x from root but it starts up anyway.

So what am I missing? is it not working correctly under root either?

The properties on the /usr/X11R6/bin/XFree86 file the owner is user: root
and group: wheel. rwx pemissions for user, rx for group and rx for others.

Thanks again for all your help.

-Lee

Quote:

>   The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the
>   strong, but that's the way to bet.