Hi, Andrew! > I'm wondering if a wrong configuration on video card and/or monitor, when > used with xdm (not startx), could lock up the machine. > Here is what happened: couple of month ago when I installed X for the > first time, I configured xdm to start at the boot. > My machine worked fine with startx before. However, as soon as I rebooted, > and I got prompted for boot...not even with xdm...my screen started to > blink from blank to non-blank, and keyboard was locked up during blank > screen. Non-blank meaning it showed me boot-up messages. >
I suspect that your X is configured not quite right. Blinking screen is likely to be misconfiguration of VIDEO CARD. Make sure you are using right xserver for your card. It's not a good idea to start xdm at boot, till you made sure that everything is working in X. BTW you can start xdm from console just typing "xdm" as root. > Nothing I wasnt able to fix with cfdisk and reformatting of primary > partition...was my 3rd day of using Deb. so.. Well, that perhaps was unnecessary. Just take out set no-start-xdm in /etc/X11/config (in hamm). If you system is still blinking you need rescue diskette to boot it and modify that file. > But I want to give xdm another chance, and was wondering if something like > that could have happened because of wrong configuration of X? > Yes, wrong configuration of X is very likely. Check you /etc/X11/XServer file. What video card are you using? Someone can just send you his XF86Config and you can extract relevant part. Good luck, Sasha.
