Subj : Re: X server quits. Log file here. No apparent error
To   : comp.os.linux.questions,comp.os.linux
From : nijhawan
Date : Fri Jul 16 2004 10:14 am

noone@celeron.local (Wiseguy) wrote in message news:<40f707a5_3@127.0.0.1>...
> nijhawan@hotmail.com (Rohit Nijhawan) tried to express:
> > I would greatly appreciate it if one of you guys could help me with
> > this one.
> > 
> > 1. I installed woody r2 with kernel 2.2.20 vanilla (debian)
> > 2. I changed my sources.list to include testing packages.
> > 3. I updated things like mozilla and it automatically updated quite a
> > few of my libraries.
> > 4. Among those libraries were programs related to Xserver and fonts.
> > 
> > 5. Now when i boot my system and choose the linux boot, it goes
> > straight into kdm->kde.
> > 6. when i log out of kde and enter startx i get the following error
> > log and then it just quits. I am guessing it has something to do with
> > the fact that my kernel is 2.2.20 and i've installed xserver 4.1.x
> > whereas it expects things to be at the 4.0 standard
> > 
> > Looking at the following log file, can anyone of you guys guess why i
> > am not able to enter "startx" to get into X? Once I log out of X after
> > a reboot, i can enter xdm to get into kde but startx doesn't work.
> > Here's the log
> 
> If the system is setup to use an X dislay manager upon login then you should
> never use startx to run X11.  You simply logout then log back in using the
> display manager gui.
> 
> If you don't wish to have X start upon login then change the system runlevel
> to (3 in most distros) so that you always get a text mode login.  then
> you can use startx to fire up X11 whenever you need it.  You will most
> probably have to customize your .xinitrc script though.
> 
> -Wiseguy


Thanks wiseguy. You are right on the money. I say are and not were
because I smashed my head into this for hours and found out that X was
running all along.

For those who can use this as a reference, If you're running kdm then
you simply type in
../etc/init.d/kdm stop
../etc/init.d/kdm start

and you will be back in again.

Most people should look at their /etc/inittab file and change the
runlevel accordingly.
But remember that if you have /etc/init.d/kdm soft linked to
/etc/rcX.d/S99kdm.sh then you'll have to change /etc/init.d/kdm to be:

guess what? RUNLEVEL-DEPENDENT. 
this is the biggest load of crap in debian. Runlevels don't mean squat
for X server.

I still can't get the runlevel 3 to NOT take me into X at startup so i
am thinking about removing my S99kdm.sh file altogether.

Best of luck everyone

.