I'm having one strange problem - /root/.xsession-errors is taking up all the free space left on the linux partition! The partition had some 500 MB free space, but due to this file, the partition is full. I can't run Linux (as the disk is full) and have to delete the file with Partition Magic 8 everytime I need to run the X Window in Linux.

My question is - how can I disable this error-logging and all other kinds of logging, as it's of almost no use to me! I'm using RedHat 8.

Another not so important question - Which is the best Linux distro? I'm new to Linux, but very good at M$ operating systems!

Well, long time Linux users know that it's best to put /var on it's own partition!! that way error logs don't get a chance to clog up the / partition and it's associated directories /usr, /etc
use partition magic to make a new partition and then edit /etc/fstab to point /var to it. you will see a noticeable improvment in performance and then.....you can start to investigate the problem with /root/.xsession and get it fixed.
post back here when done, so we can help with .xsession prob.

The best distro......only you can answer that, just try different distro's......look at the pro's and con's of each.......IE default GUI, text editors, package managers, and how each distro performs with your box. Most people here like to get their "hands dirty" and Slackware, Debian, Gentoo, or any of the flavors of "BSD" give them a chance to do this...........

This is probably gonads but tempting to try:

startx & 2> /dev/null

to attempt to dump all the error messages to the computer's black hole.

Hello 320mb, thanks for the reply. I didn't know much about the different partitions to create when I installed Linux, I have only /boot on a separate partition and a swap partition in addition to / . I don't have much space left on that Linux partition, only some 550MB. How much space shall I allocate to the /var partition? I assume it would be the size of that folder plus some extra, but still, it would be better if you guide me about this and what separate partitions I should create (and their sizes), so that I can use those the next time I install some distro. And how should I make it /var ? Just label it as that in Partition Magic?

Anyway, the .xsession-errors file is in /root, so I guess I should create a separate folder for that too(and for /home), the next time I install Linux! About the performance issue, I guess you're right, cos RH8 is making my P3 550MHz, 64MB RAM PC run dammmnnn slow. I'll try that /etc/fstab thing later, as I'm in Windoze.


Hi lugoteehalt. My linux boots directly into GUI for the log-in screen. Do I need to use that command everytime I need to run X Window system? To use that, I'll have to change it to text mode and type it everytime. I'm looking for a permanent solution to this problem!

Tried the command to try to dump the error messages to /dev/null and it didn't work. Did say it was gonads.

Isn't the repartitioning a bit of a council of perfection? Am no expert but if it were me I'd dissable the logging thing somehow and then - hoping the computer would work better as a result - try to fix whatever is generating the errors (X not configured right?)

You could probably switch off logging in the 'control centre' thing in you GUI - logging may be switched on during startup and you may be able to turn it off as you would turn off numlock. You could destroy the file it writes to or mark it read only.

Hope helps.

In Linux, i don't think it will be as easy as turning NumLock off! I don't know what was wrong with X system configuration, it was working fine, but was too slow, even slower in GNOME. I think that error used to take place only when I used to start GNOME, I am quite sure it wasn't due to KDE.

I think there might be some program running in the background at startup, which handles all this logging, and disabling it should stop the logging, but I'm not sure, I'm new to Linux.

Anyway, I had to remove RH 8, it was having way too many problems than I could handle! It was giving some damn error on startup and asking me to run fsck. I had no idea what arguments that function took, and fsck -h didn't help. Plus, it was too slow, so I couldn't take it anymore! Now, I'm experimenting with other distros, might get back to it later.

But the next time I try any distros, I would like to disable logging first! It only slows the PC down!