Startx works for root but freezes for user?

haziz · 04-15-2012, 05:04 PM

While using Slackware 13.37 startx (which invokes xfce) failed (it did work in the past) and produces a black screen when started as a regular user (it gives a black screen, I hard rebooted the machine but this behavior continues).

If I startx however as root it continues to work normally.

Machine is an Asus EEE Box B202 (Intel Atom N270 processor).

Worst case scenario, I likely can generate a second user (where startx presumably works) and migrate some of my home subdirectories to that, but this is a pain since I finally have tweaked my setup to my satisfaction. I usually work most of the time at the command line, and invoke startx only when needed.

Thanks.

TommyC7 · 04-15-2012, 05:13 PM

Ok so if you didn't have this problem in the past I'm going to assume your user is part of the necessary groups. With that assumption, does a cursor show up (like an X for a cursor instead of an arrow?)

From the description I'd say just run "xwmconfig" as the user who's having problems and select the <gui>.xinitrc file and see if startx works after that.

H_TeXMeX_H · 04-16-2012, 02:23 AM

What did you do before this happened ? Did you upgrade any packages like xorg-server ? Sometimes the suid root is not set on /usr/bin/Xorg.

Code:

bash-4.1$ ls -l /usr/bin/Xorg
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 1934344 Mar 18  2011 /usr/bin/Xorg

Don't restart if it fails, press Ctrl-Alt-Backspace and read what it says. Also check /var/log/Xorg.0.log.

TobiSGD · 04-16-2012, 08:59 AM

I had a similar issue a few days back, for some reason when starting X as my user it didn't work. The reason was that it had problems with the .Xauthority files in my home-directory. After deleting them it worked again. May be you just try that.

glorsplitz · 04-16-2012, 06:47 PM

I have slackware 64 current running in vbox current on a couple different computers.

On one computer after upgrades couple weeks ago I was only able to get into KDE via root, someone else said something about not using xorg.conf, I renamed it to something other and was able to get in KDE as regular user. Other computer everything worked fine no problem.

After all the stuff with current today, I removed .Xauthority files in my home-directory and put back xorg.conf now I can get in as regular user.