Andy Bierlair wrote > i wanted to install a few things including X WIndows. i can enter > the XWIN setup in the beginning and set up screen, graphic card, > etc... now debian wanted to launch X WINdows once again, and then i > got my problem ! The whole stuff is hanging. i can still see the > Prompt, but my screen is always changing colors from black to > white. i cannot break it. i cannot even start a new session with > ALT-F2. it sure shows me my new session, but i cannot type in it. so > now i'm very helpless and i don't know what to do now ! I also had > the same problem in Debian 1.3.1. so far i could never get X FREE > running...... i cannot set up anything on my computer now, because > it launches automatically X WINDOWS
What's going on: you're running xdm, which automatically re-starts the X server when it dies. This can be very bad indeed if your X server dies right after starting up. xdm starts the X server, X server dies, xdm starts the X server, ... towards infinity. To fix this: you don't want xdm to start up on boot (at least for now), or you'll get the above mentioned problem. If you boot from lilo, at the "LILO:" prompt (which will come up if you hit ctrl or alt or tab before the kernel loads), type in the image name followed by the word "single" (w/out quotes). If you don't know the image name, at the LILO: prompt, hit the tab key for a listing. Probably, there will be only one if you're on a new system (and maybe another one for DOS). This will bring up a root shell, and not load most of your programs. Look at the file /etc/X11/xdm/config (I _think_ this is the right file -- I don't have my debian system in front of me now so I'm getting all this from memory). There should be a line in this text file which is something like "start-xdm-on-boot". Comment this line out (put any character in front of it, probably a "#" to make it look like a shell comment). This will stop xdm from loading. Hit ctrl-d to exit the root shell, and your system should continue booting in a normal manner. Ok, you still need to fix the X server problem -- it should not die as soon as you start it. There are multiple reasons why this can happen. Look in the file /var/log/xdm-errors to see why X died. Common reasons: - there are no valid video modes. Make sure your monitor spec's are entered correctly in /etc/X11/XF86Config. - Can't find any fonts. Make sure the font path (in XF86Config) actually point to fonts you have. Make sure the font packages are installed. - I'm sure there are more, but I can't think of them right now. Good luck! John
