Hello,

I am using Mandrake 8.2/PPC on my iBook, and for some reason, XWindows has stopped launching after startup. I instead get a prompt and have to login through the shell and then do 'startx' to get into GNOME (I had to make a .xinitrc file to stop it from starting into KDE automatically). I have checked /etc/inittab and it is set to use runlevel 5, and when Linux is starting up, it even says "Switching to runlevel 5". But it just doesn't open X.

Does anybody have any ideas?

TIA.

in your inittab file do you have a line like this

x:5:respawn:/etc/X11/prefdm -noaemon


or something like it?


if so checkout the command it's running and see if there is a problem with it. It should be running gdm, which should open the gui login.

rename /var/log/XFree86.0.log to /var/log/XFree86_0_log
reboot
look for errors in /var/log/XFree86.0.log
Post those errors.

David:

I do have a line like that. Here is what I think you meant by "the program it is running",

5:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty5

I guess that would mean that it is running tty5 in runlevel 5 (which I don't believe is graphical). So I commented that line out and put in "5:2345:respawn:/usr/bin/gdm" to check that out. It does let me graphically log in (which is nice), but that is the GNOME Desktop Manager. My "old" login screen was a Mandrake login screen, not specific to any WM. Of course, until we get it back to the Mandrake screen, I'll leave gdm in there because it is certainly nicer than text .


moses ():

There were some errors in the log,
(EE) RADEON(0): Cannot read V_BIOS (5)

(EE) RADEON(0): [dri] RADEONDRIScreenInit failed because of a version mismatch. [dri] radeon.o kernel module version is 1.1.1 but version 1.2.x is needed. [dri] see http://gatos.sf.net/ for an updated module [dri] Disabling DRI.

(EE) RADEON(0): [drm] failed to remove DRM signal handler


Any ideas if those errors are the cause of the no-x problem?

Thanks for the help, all!

thats not it, you still need a program to start the login manager like the one above

id:3:initdefault:

# System initialization.
si::sysinit:/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit

l0:0:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 0
l1:1:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 1
l2:2:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 2
l3:3:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 3
l4:4:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 4
l5:5:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 5
l6:6:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 6

# Things to run in every runlevel.
ud::once:/sbin/update
# Trap CTRL-ALT-DELETE
ca::ctrlaltdel:/bin/false

# When our UPS tells us power has failed, assume we have a few minutes
# of power left. Schedule a shutdown for 2 minutes from now.
# This does, of course, assume you have powerd installed and your
# UPS connected and working correctly.
pf::powerfail:/sbin/shutdown -f -h +2 "Power Failure; System Shutting Down"

# If power was restored before the shutdown kicked in, cancel it.
pr:12345:powerokwait:/sbin/shutdown -c "Power Restored; Shutdown Cancelled"


# Run gettys in standard runlevels
1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty1
2:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty2
3:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty3
4:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty4
5:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty5
6:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty6


s2:2345:respawn:/sbin/mgetty /dev/ttyS0


# Run xdm in runlevel 5
# xdm is now a separate service
x:5:respawn:/etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon

I'm not sure what you would like me to do that with that inittab file. I tried copying it into my own (I backed up my copy and just pasted what you posted into a new one and restarted), but all that succeeded in doing was forcing me into a text login again.

I'm not sure where to look for this "program to start the login manager" that you were referring to in the post before your latest one. It worked fine before. I have no idea what happened to make it stop.

Btw, if you couldn't already tell, I am really a newbie at this, so you have to be really specific when giving me instructions.
And thanks for the help you have been providing so far.

here is the command


/etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon

or you should also have kdm

David's inittab defaults to runlevel 3, which is the console. You can't just
copy and paste to your file, you need to change the default runlevel to 5,
id:3:initdefault:
should be
id:5:initdefault:

When I copied his file into mine, I did change the runlevels to 5 (except sysinit which I made 3). It didn't work.

My original inittab file already had the prefdm command at the bottom, the exact same one as in your file, David. This is really confusing me as to why it won't start graphically.

run init 5 and then kdm see if it loads

You mean run them when I have to log in via shell? I would think they wouldn't work when I am already in GNOME, correct? I'll have to do that when I get home this evening.

yea, something may be wrong with gdm

try kdm if you have it

I have kdm, but it didn't want to load up. GDM is what I have been using for the time being (because the normal startup screen stopped working). I ever tried XDM, but there is no way that is right (and there is no way I would ever use that).

try going in X and run gdmsetup

maybe something in there that's not right


also check logs using

dmesg | less

and

/var/log/messages | less