[SOLVED] startx/xterm kills computer

Hello, all.

I am trying to install Slackware 14.0 on an old Celeron 300 from the ground up. I started with just the A and AP sets to get the system bootable, and then, by following the instructions on various sites and posts, I have been attempting to load packages incrementally to get a running X environment.

The current status is that, when I run startx, I get a black screen with what appears to be the core of an xterm window. Rather than the standard xterm command prompt, however, all it has in it is a flashing, blank cursor box. There is no mouse cursor, and no input of any kind is accepted anymore. I have no choice but to do a hard reset to restore functionality to the computer.

Here is the current output from slackpkg generate-template:

NetworkManager
a2ps
aaa_base
aaa_elflibs
aaa_terminfo
acct
acl
acpid
alsa-lib
apmd
appres
ash
at
attr
bash
bc
bdftopcf
bin
bitmap
bpe
btrfs-progs
bzip2
ca-certificates
compiz
coreutils
cpio
cpufrequtils
cryptsetup
cups
curl
cxxlibs
dbus
dbus-glib
dc3dd
dcron
ddrescue
dejavu-fonts-ttf
devs
dhcp
dhcpcd
dialog
diffstat
diffutils
dmapi
dmidecode
dosfstools
e2fsprogs
ed
eject
elvis
encodings
enscript
etc
ethtool
expat
file
findutils
floppy
font-adobe-100dpi
font-adobe-75dpi
font-alias
font-bh-100dpi
font-bh-75dpi
font-bh-lucidatypewriter-100dpi
font-bh-lucidatypewriter-75dpi
font-bitstream-100dpi
font-bitstream-75dpi
font-bitstream-speedo
font-bitstream-type1
font-cursor-misc
font-micro-misc
font-misc-misc
font-util
font-xfree86-type1
fontconfig
fonttosfnt
foomatic-filters
freetype
fslsfonts
fstobdf
gawk
genpower
gettext
getty-ps
ghostscript
ghostscript-fonts-std
glib2
glibc-i18n
glibc-solibs
glibc-zoneinfo
gnutls
gphoto2
gpm
gptfdisk
grep
groff
gutenprint
gzip
hdparm
htop
iceauth
iftop
inetd
infozip
inotify-tools
iputils
isapnptools
ispell
jfsutils
kbd
kernel-firmware
kernel-huge
kernel-modules
kmod
ksh93
less
lha
libFS
libICE
libSM
libX11
libXau
libXaw
libXaw3d
libXcm
libXcomposite
libXcursor
libXdmcp
libXevie
libXext
libXfixes
libXfont
libXfontcache
libXft
libXi
libXinerama
libXmu
libXp
libXpm
libXrandr
libXrender
libXres
libXt
libXv
libXxf86misc
libcgroup
libdrm
libfontenc
libgcrypt
libgpg-error
libjpeg
libpciaccess
libpng
libpthread-stubs
libtiff
libx86
libxcb
libxkbfile
lilo
links
linuxdoc-tools
lm_sensors
logrotate
lrzip
lsof
lsscsi
luit
lvm2
lxc
m17n-lib
mailx
man
man-pages
mc
mcelog
mdadm
minicom
mkfontdir
mkfontscale
mkinitrd
most
mt-st
mtx
mysql
nano
ncompress
net-tools
network-scripts
normalize
ntfs-3g
openssh
openssl
openssl-solibs
patch
pciutils
pcmciautils
pixman
pkgtools
pm-utils
powertop
procps
quota
radeontool
reiserfsprogs
rexima
rgb
rpm
rpm2tgz
rzip
sc
screen
sdl
sdparm
sed
seejpeg
sessreg
setxkbmap
shadow
sharutils
showfont
slackpkg
slocate
smartmontools
soma
splitvt
sqlite
sudo
svgalib
sysfsutils
sysklogd
syslinux
sysstat
sysvinit
sysvinit-functions
sysvinit-scripts
tar
tcsh
texinfo
time
traceroute
tree
udev
udisks
udisks2
unarj
upower
usb_modeswitch
usbutils
utempter
util-linux
util-macros
vbetool
vim
wget
which
x11-skel
xauth
xbitmaps
xconsole
xcursor-themes
xcursorgen
xf86-input-keyboard
xf86-input-mouse
xf86-input-vmmouse
xf86-video-nv
xf86-video-vesa
xfontsel
xfsdump
xfsprogs
xinit
xkbcomp
xkbutils
xkeyboard-config
xlsfonts
xorg-cf-files
xorg-server
xset
xsetroot
xterm
xz
zlib
zoo
zsh

I feel like there's more than enough in there to get a basic X running, but obviously there is still something missing. Can anyone spot the missing package for me?

Thanks in advance!

I do not know the list of packages enough to make an extremely minimal installation for a Celeron 300, but here is where you can look to get an idea about what might be missing.

http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/...inimal_Install

I would also look into your /var/log/Xorg.0.log as it might give some indication why it's not completing. dmesg might be helpful too, depending on the issue.

As with mralk3, I'm not sure the required packages for a minimal X install. I've always had the space to just install everything (only the things you select to run will run, no matter what is installed -- if you're worried about CPU and RAM usage).

Originally Posted by bassmadrigal I've always had the space to just install everything (only the things you select to run will run, no matter what is installed -- if you're worried about CPU and RAM usage).

Agreed.

I suggest installing the full a/ d/ l/ n/ and x/ package sets at the very least and add whatever is missing later. What is the harm in installing the requirements and then trimming out the large unnecessary packages later? It seems like it would be easier to delete than to add one package at a time and hoping that package is the last one you need.

Here is an article by ruario that discusses Setting up a "small" Slackware install.

This particular one liner should be very helpful:

( cd /var/log/packages/ ; grep -x 'U.*M' * ) | awk -F: '{print $3 "\t" $1}' | sort -n

Originally Posted by bassmadrigal I would also look into your /var/log/Xorg.0.log as it might give some indication why it's not completing. dmesg might be helpful too, depending on the issue. As with mralk3, I'm not sure the required packages for a minimal X install. I've always had the space to just install everything (only the things you select to run will run, no matter what is installed -- if you're worried about CPU and RAM usage).

Of course, if I installed everything it would work, but where's the fun in that?

I hadn't thought about the Xorg.0.log file. I'll check into that and see if that helps.

I can't use dmesg because the computer has been hard-booted between the time of the problem and the next time I can actually get to a command line. Xorg.0.log should still have useful data in it, though. I'll check it out and see what I can find.

Originally Posted by SUSESailor Of course, if I installed everything it would work, but where's the fun in that?

More often than not, attempts to do minimal installs are due to an incorrect assumption that on Slackware, a full install will use more resources when booted (except for harddrive space, obviously). In case you had that assumption, I just wanted to clear it up. There's nothing wrong with running a minimal install (even if it is to just learn the system better), but it can make it harder to troubleshoot any problems that arise.

I doubt very many people would know just from glancing through your package list of any obvious missing packages. We'd need logs and/or error messages to give us an idea of what the system is complaining about. Out of curiosity, what do you have as your default WM in xwmconfig?

Originally Posted by SUSESailor I can't use dmesg because the computer has been hard-booted between the time of the problem and the next time I can actually get to a command line. Xorg.0.log should still have useful data in it, though. I'll check it out and see what I can find.

I don't have access to my Slackware system right now to verify this, but based on some google searches, you might have a /var/log/dmesg.0, which should contain the dmesg output from the last boot (where /var/log/dmesg would contain the current boot). If that isn't available, but you have another computer handy, you could try using ssh when the computer crashes to see if you can access dmesg that way before you reboot your system.

There is no dmesg.0 on my system, so no help there.

I did go into /var/log/ and look at the Xorg.0.log file. The last several lines were all complaining about not being able to load module "evdev".

So, I loaded the xf86-input-evdev package. Now, I try it and the same thing still happens, but now after the reboot Xorg.0.log is empty!

Start your system in run level 3 and see what the output of startx gives. That will be the best way to debug missing XOrg dependencies.

If you hadn't loaded the xf86-input-evdev package, it might mean you're missing other x/ packages. Did you not install everything within the x/ series? You might be able to get away with leaving out some of the drivers for various video cards if you don't use them on your system, but the majority of the x/ series packages are probably required to get x/ up and running.

If you want to be really prudent and not install everything from x/, I would at least start with all packages starting with lib and all starting with x. Something like:

installpkg /location/to/installer/slackware64/x/{lib,x}*.t?z

Well, after bassmadrigal's suggestion of checking out xwmconfig, I decided to go ahead and install the core components of xfce, knowing that I would eventually want a decent desktop environment anyway. So, after installing that - and several things that that wanted which I hadn't installed yet - I reached a state of having at least a mouse cursor. The xterm window was gone and it still wouldn't accept input, but at least it was writing data to Xorg.0.log again.

So, it turns out that evdev was the problem all along. When it stopped writing to Xorg.0.log after I installed xf86-input-evdev, it prevented me from seeing the final error message which was that evdev needed libmtdev. When xfce brought Xorg.0.log back to life, I was able to see the final problem. I installed mtdev, and that finally brought me to a functioning X environment. The mouse arrow worked and the keyboard allowed me to Ctrl+Alt+Bksp out of it. Nothing else worked because the xfce stuff still needed a whole bunch of other libraries I hadn't installed yet, but at least I could startx and kill it without having to reboot the computer.

Thank you for all your help!