startx, xauth

Steve009 · 05-15-2003, 03:55 AM

A perplexing x problem ... when I log in - as user or root - I can startx at the command prompt, no errors reported. But when I quit x and try to restart it ... I get "command not found". So I skedaddle over to /usr/X11R6/bin and try "./startx", this time I get the error message "xauth: command not found". xauth is there, sitting in the same directory as startx.
Any ideas ?
Thanks in advance,
Steve

unSpawn · 05-15-2003, 06:15 AM

Could be it's not in your path. "echo $PATH", and if X11 ain't in it, do "export PATH=$PATH:/usr/X11R6/bin" or make it permanent and add it to your shell's system-wide resource file's PATH statement.

Steve009 · 05-16-2003, 06:44 AM

Thanks unSpawn, the export command fixed it temporarily. "echo PATH" / "set" finds it before I go to X but not after I've switched between root and user ... I realise I have no .bashrc or .bash_profile files, so I was thinking to copy samples from a working Mandrake os, adding X11 to the PATH variable, to both /root/ and /home/<user>/ in the hope that they'll stick. Any inherent problems in doing this ?
Thanks again for your advice,
Steve

unSpawn · 05-16-2003, 07:44 AM

I realise I have no .bashrc or .bash_profile files
You could set the path from /etc/profile. If there are there no samples in /etc/skel then you could tweak samples from another box w/o probs, yes.

Steve009 · 05-20-2003, 05:28 AM

unSpawn - thanks for your advice. There's no /etc/skel on the minimal Slackware 9.0 I'm running (from a magazine CD), but root's .bash~ files from Mandrake (with PATH edited according to privileges) do the trick. One day I'll try and get to the bottom of this, meanwhile I've 101 other configuration tasks.
Thanks again,
Steve