I've posted this in the General forum, but so far the only reply I've received is that more information is needed, but being a Linux n00b, I really don't know what is pertinent to the problem.

Just today I compiled from source (for the first time, mind you) my own 2.4.20-19.9 kernel. Much to my surprise, it worked after fixing a few USB and IEEE1394 problems. However, if I try to open an xterm or a gnome-terminal under X using my user account, I only get a blinking cursor and never receive a shell prompt. It works fine if I'm logged in as root.

This used to work just fine with my old 2.4.20-18.9 kernel that I installed from rpm. Obviously I've done something terribly wrong when I compiled the -19.9 kernel. Anyone have any ideas what I did wrong?

OK that normally means that it having trouble running your shell or something on your path. Do you login via the graphical interface or via the command line interface? Also which distro you running?

Rgds

Rus

The distro is RH9. I boot directly to a GUI.

OK If you press Ctrl+Alt+F3 you should get to a CLI login. Try logging in there and see what happens

Rgds

Rus

Oh, yeah, the shell works just fine from a CLI - and until I get get it to work again in X, that's the only way I can access a shell.

Also, I have the same problem in both the WMs I use - Fluxbox and GNOME, so it's not a WM issue...

Which terminal are you trying to start? xterm/aterm/rxvt?

Rgds

Rus

From GNOME, "New Terminal" opens gnome-terminal. In Flux, I have the option of opening either xterm or gnome-terminal. Neither work. If I select "Run program" in GNOME and enter xterm, that doesn't work either.

Hmmm... maybe I'll try creating another user profile and see if that works... I'll try that later after I log out of Winblows.