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Concerned why XFree was hosed


scoopy
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My install of Mandy 9 went fine about three months ago, and Nvidia driver update went glitch free about 2 weeks ago, but on a recent cold boot I find I now have 20 more users at the login window (such as adm, bin, and daemon) and nothing will get X up and running anymore (at least not more than a few seconds before it crashes again).

 

I've tried various things to get XFree86 to run, but nothing is working. I end up with various fatal server errors. I wasn't trying to install anything or upgrade anything lately and glx gears were churning out a nice 600 plus frames per second during the previous weeks. (My current projects involved mplayer and mencoder or poking around kde's control center looking for preferences I could set)

 

Looks like I will be doing a fresh install, but my concern at the moment is why this may have happened? Any ideas?

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you been screwing around again :D

 

You shouldn't see daemon etc as a user on the login, they have user accounts but i though that anything with a id bellow 500 wasn't shown for the login users.

What have you tried to get xfree running?, did you have a backup of the XF86Config-4 file and other config files in the X11 directory?

 

did you try as su XFdrake from the console and try reconfiguring X?

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Who Me? Not this time. Yeh, sometimes I do ask for trouble, but not this time. And Shhhh! I don't want my girl to find out about these affairs :lol:

 

This is why I am concerned, since I didn't ask for it. Things were going too smooth till this.

 

Seriously, I have tried XFdrake, XFdrake with the --expert, manual edit of XF86Config-4 file by swapping nvidia with nv and vice versa and also commenting out Load glx line. I tried swapping that file with the .old version. I tried vim -r XF86Config-4 as command line prompted me that I had an open version of the swap file (or something like that). (all as root)

 

No backups are available, other than the .old files and everything seems to be detected as it should but still no X

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My install of Mandy 9 went fine about three months ago, and Nvidia driver update went glitch free about 2 weeks ago, but on a recent cold boot I find I now have 20 more users at the login window (such as adm, bin, and daemon) and nothing will get X up and running anymore (at least not more than a few seconds before it crashes again).

Most chances are that you're using a graphical login, am I correct?

I've tried various things to get XFree86 to run, but nothing is working. I end up with various fatal server errors. I wasn't trying to install anything or upgrade anything lately and glx gears were churning out a nice 600 plus frames per second during the previous weeks. (My current projects involved mplayer and mencoder or poking around kde's control center looking for preferences I could set)

 

Looks like I will be doing a fresh install, but my concern at the moment is why this may have happened? Any ideas?

 

If you succeed to see the graphical login window for more than several seconds, then XFree86 does run. It is your desktop environment that is screwed. Just re-install KDE.

OTOH, if even the graphical login window doesn't show but for a few seconds, the problem may be completely different.

Still, if the graphical login window does show, the problem is not with XFree86 as such not running ( for it does run), but rather with kdm ( or gdm, or xdm, whatever you use).

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Yes chalex20, you are correct, I am trying to fire up KDE (or gnome) through Lilo's graphic login. I get the "Welcome to localhost" login (with a black background instead) and with the additional 20 users I never added.

 

Yes also, I have been confusing a KDE crash with X. That would explain then why XFdrake tests fine and also config-4 file is OK then. This would also explain why it would happen after being in KDE's control center ( It always seems strange things happen after nosing around there, ever since my beginning with LM 8.0 )

 

I will try some other window managers or reinstall/upgrade KDE.

Thanx for pointing me in the right direction.

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Woo Hoo! Back in business. But Holy cheese and crackers, I'd have twice as much grey hair now if I wasn't pulling some out along the way.

 

The solution was to urpme kdebase (along with its depends) and then reinstall after booting into failsafe mode. Normal rpm -i and -e would tell me "everything already installed" or "kde is not installed." I now have my kde restored as I had left if (with all the widgets and thingys as I had them).

 

Prior to this I tried starting window managers and such from root's command line, such as kdm, gdm, kdestart, fvwm, gnomestart, but if anything did start, it would crash immediately. I then installed Xtart, which got me into gnome and probably cleared up some of the mess with the login problems.

 

One last minor glitch: If I try to start userdrake, it reports "Cannot lock user lib, file /etc/ptmp or /etc/gtmp exist" What am I supposed to do here? Delete, edit, lock or unlock it? (Login window is back to its normal 2 users on a blue background)

 

Thanx again

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Yes chalex20, you are correct, I am trying to fire up KDE (or gnome) through Lilo's graphic login.

Why Lilo's? Please start calling things their right names :-)

LILO graphic prompt is what you get before you boot Linux

I get the "Welcome to localhost" login (with a black background instead) and with the additional 20 users I never added.

kdm configuration file ( /usr/share/config/kdm/kdmrc) is screwed. Have you tinkered with the "Login manager" part of KDE Control Center? It's an option there to show all users, or selected users, or all but no-show users. Most chances are that the "show all users" value got selected somehow.

Yes also, I have been confusing a KDE crash with X. That would explain then why XFdrake tests fine and also config-4 file is OK then. This would also explain why it would happen after being in KDE's control center

Being root is dangerous :-)

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