I haven't loaded X as root in about 2 months. Today I tried to do so, and it seemed to start up as usual, but when the screen went blank, and the "X" cursor appeared, the computer stops. The pointer moves with the mouse, but there is nothing to click on, none of the buttons do anything, and ^C / ^Z don't do anything. I've tried to load it about ten times, and it never finishes loading. One time I was able to hit ^Z just as it started, and got it to stop. There didn't seem to be any unusual messages on the screen. Note that X loads just fine under my normal login.

have you tried looking at the /var/log/XFree86.0.log logfile to see if there maybe any clues as to why this happens?

maybe there's something in root's .xinitrc that can't load.
maybe the window manager has been moved or something.

is root's .xinitrc supposed to be in the root directory? because it's not. is that the "root" of the problem?

I looked at /var/log/XFree86.0.log and there doesn't seem to be anything odd in it.

the thing i don't understand is, that i haven't done anything with root in a long time... nothing should've changed.

it would be /root/.xinitrc
it may not it exist. it's not necessary.
if there isn't one, then i think /etc/X11/xinit gets used instead.
i can't remember for sure which file gets used if there isn't
a .xinitrc in the users home dir.
copy the .xinitrc from your users home dir to root's dir, and
then try it.

thank you for the help, but the problem mysteriously solved itself. i tried to load it on four or five consecutive boots, with no luck. Then I tried a couple days later, and it worked just fine. ???

thanks again

i hacked into your machine and fixed it.

so you did, eh?
thanks

the only kind of computer i could hack into would be one made of wood