Short Lived Window Managers!

AlanL · 05-13-2004, 11:22 PM

1 or 2 days after I install blackbox, fluxbox or
xfce, there gone. Just a grey screen or small
clock on black screen with xfce. Other wms
work fine. If I remove and install they are good
again for a day or two. I just ran xwmconfig
and selected blackbox. /root/xinitrc shows
exec blackbox. Grey screen! I tried editing in
the exact path but it didn`t help. I could exit
windowmaker to blackbox but now that has
also quit. Where to look?

Cerbere · 05-14-2004, 01:17 AM

That's one of the strangest problems I've ever heard and on hearing it, it made me think of two things:

1) How many people know your root password?

2) Don't run X as root!

Enjoy!
--- Cerbere

major.tom · 05-14-2004, 02:01 AM

Could it be that the screen is blanking after a period of inactivity and won't "wake up"? If this is the case, I would suggest turning off power management in your bios.

Do you get anything when you run startx? If not, it might be a video-related issue. What kind of video card do you have?

Garry

elluva · 05-14-2004, 09:33 AM

indeed, are there other wm-ers that work fine, just to be sure it isn't XF86 related?

succes,
elluva

keefaz · 05-14-2004, 03:28 PM

what does the file /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc link to ? And how do you start X, from GDM, KDM, XDM or directly from console ?

Brane Ded · 05-14-2004, 09:47 PM

You might try adding "xset s off" to your xinitrc to turn off screen blanking.

AlanL · 05-14-2004, 10:56 PM

I said that I have a grey screen. Would I have that
if there was screen blanking taking place?
I`m using startx.
I did mention that other wms work ok.
Cerbere...good point! I`ve just noticed that the 3
wms work when run as user. They worked as root
when first installed. Something must have changed.
Why wouldn`t a wm work as root?
I copied xinitrc from home to root -still wont work.

keefaz · 05-15-2004, 08:01 AM

When I do man X, I can say that X look at ~/.xinitrc first and if not found go to /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc, so did you try to remove your ~/.xinitrc file and run startx ?

Shade · 05-15-2004, 12:39 PM

As root, in slackware, you typically don't have /usr/X11R6/bin/ in your path, which is where most X applications install their binaries, save KDE which is in /opt.
I figure it's just some weird path stuff going on. Perhaps a mixture of su-ing and logging in as root?

--Shade

elluva · 05-16-2004, 03:38 AM

Is there still a problem if you are able to log on as a normal user? You can do all your admin tasks with CLI, especially in Slack this is no problem...

AlanL · 05-17-2004, 11:21 PM

Fun with computers! When I log on I type 3 things...root
...pswd...mc. Quite by accident I have discovered that
flux, bbox and xfce wont start when mc is running!
They will start from CL(black screen). It`s the same
for both root and user. Fvwm2/95 and wmaker start
either way. Go figure!!!