I just upgraded my Dell Latitude D800 from SuSE 9.3 to SuSE 10.0. After installing all the packages, connecting to the net and installing all the updates, X windows will not start. I get the nVidia splash screen and then I get the gray pre-X windows screen with the stopwatch icon ticking away. After about 30 seconds, this goes away and the cycle starts over with a "teaser" login prompt which is quickly replaced by the nVidia splash screen and then another failed attempt to start X/Gnome. I never get the login screen. X doesn't seem to be trying any new tricks to get itself started.

If I kill off X (CTRL-ALT-Backspace), I can type a few characters into the login prompt before another attempt is made to start X. I'll kill this attempt, and type a few more characters into the login prompt. Eventually I can log in and kill off gdm, and then there are no more attempts to start X.

Examining Xorg.0.log, I don't find anything unusual.

If I try to run scpm, I get the message:
scpm: /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6: version CXXABI_1.3.1 not found (required by /usr/lib/libscpm.so.1).

If I try to run yast, I get the message:
/usr/lib/YasT2/plugin/libpy2ncurses.so.2: /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6 version `CXXABI_1.3.1' not found (required by /usr/lib/YaST2)

Thanks for any help you can give,
Steve

First off, gdm is designed to continuously resurrect itself when X gets killed. That explains the whole reset thing.

Secondly, it seems that you have some major issue with Gnome. The only thing I can think off is that it's not installed properly, so REINSTALL IT. Of course I'm not much of a Suse guy, so that'll have to be up to you.

The other thing you could try is very simple: edit your ~/.xinitrc file and put "exec gnome-session" in it. That will tell X explicitly what desktop manager you want loaded.

That's just a shot. Maybe a more Suse-compitent person could give you a better answer.

-- the dudeman

I did install twice, and got the same problem both times.

re: adding "exec gnome-session" to my .xinitrc file...

The first problem I need to solve is why the login screen doesn't appear.

*** Can someone point me to a good reference on the web about the sequence of programs that are supposed to run at boot time to get X windows/Gnome up and running and give me a login prompt?

It might be linked to the error message about /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6 version `CXXABI_1.3.1' not found. Why aren't the RPMs taking care of all the dependencies? Is there a specific package I need to reinstall? But there is the not-so-minor detail that I can't run yast because of that same problem.

I reinstalled the rpm for libstdc++:
cd /media/SU1000.001/suse/i586/
rpm -i -vv --force libstdc++-4.0.2_20050901-3.i586.rpm

Now I can run yast and scpm.

I still don't get a login screen.

I checked root's .xsession-errors file. It contains
Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server
Xlib: Protocol not suported by server"

I tried deleting my and root's .Xauthority files.
I tried deleting .dmrc
I tried creating /dev/generic, but that failed.

HELP!!!