Hi everybody! I have the problem that my linux mandrake 9 pc has multiple instances of one user logged in. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong to make this happen, but it'shindering the use of some programmes and making me unable to logon as the user who is logged in twice already. I have it set to automatically logon to justin, but when I type the "who" command it shows justin twice. Sometimes thrice. Is there a command to logout all users with su privileges?? And why am I logged in twice, did I not logout automatically last time I shut down?

Thanks,

justinv.

If you're running an xterm (or other terminal) under X, each one shows up as a seperate login for you. It'll show you as being logged in on "pts/x" where x is a number. If this is where your multiple logins are coming from it's normal and nothing to worry about.

who

justin pts/0 Jan 19 12:57
justin pts/1 Jan 19 13:53
justin pts/2 Jan 19 13:01

who am i

justin pts/1 Jan 19 13:53

this is normal? and can't be attributed to the failure of some programmes to run, when before they were fine?

Also, to log out all users except root, try "/sbin/shutdown -k +0". Another way to log out a user is to do a ps to find out what processes belong to them, and then kill all of their processes, including the login shell.

Assuming you are running terminal sessions under X, this is normal. The programs are probably failing for some other reason. Can you supply more details on the programs that don't run?

Thanks for your interest. I'm running ogle, xmms and tuxracer. None of these work. Tuxracer doesn't come up - the sand timer spins for a while at the bottom of the screen before disappearing. Xmms does the same. Ogle just won't play anything.

The next step in troubleshooting this is to get the messages the programs give when they try to start up. This is done by running them from a terminal, just type the name in to run them and several messages will be printed in the terminal. Post the messages here if you need help figuring out what to do about whatever problem(s) they reveal.

thanks oot, but I think I'm right now. I did cheat however, and reinstalled the whole system. I think maybe it had something to do with the sound server (?) because xmms came up with some message about that. Thanks for all your help though.