OK, this should be simple to resolve.

Basically, I'm new to Slack, and I downloaded a copy of 10.2 As I wanted GDM, I should have gotten 10.1, but oh well, whatever. Now, after installing 10.2 and finding it didn't have all I wanted, I decided to install Zenwalk. Short answer: kernel panic on boot. So, I reinstalled Slack 10.2, and installed the XFce 4.3 packages off of the Zenwalk cd. They work.

But I also wanted to use GDM. So I installed GDM.

output of gdm -nodaemon:
<nothing>

Display on VT7: Wristwatch on a black background. Bit of hard disk activity. <nothing>


What should I do to find the problem?

Also, as a last aside (please don't reply to this thread with JUST an answer to this question, ONLY reply if you have something to say about GDM), any ideas on how to get PowerPoint Viewer 97, running under WINE, to show text instead of just overlaying each character on top of the previous? The graphics work, and the font characters are positioned at the right start point, but they don't flow, just position one on top of another.

A few questions for you, ORBITrus.

1. Why gdm if your not installing GNOME? There are other ways of logging into a window manager. Try "startx" for one.

2. Xfce comes with 10.2 so there is no need to install it from ZenWalk.

3. Why not install OpenOffice.org which will read and write PowerPoint files plus do much more? You can get it from http://linuxpackages.net.

You might try running "xorgsetup" to see if it will fix X Window for you. But your problem may really be with gdm.

Dennisk

Slackware will start KDM (the KDE Display Manager) for you in the absense of Gnome... unless you did not install KDE of course.
KDM is ever as powerful as GDM, and customizeable. KDM themes can be found at kde-look.org.

Eric

And if you don't have KDE you can use xdm. Actually, the /etc/initab script will do that for you if you set it to runlevel 4 or you can start X from the commandline with "startx".

Dennisk

Ah, good old Linux, and the oh-so-usefull "try it this way".

Because I will not be using this machine, other people will, other people for whom GDM is the best fit. KDM is too high in memory, and XDM is not enough.

But not XFce 4.3 - and Thunar is the only file manager that is light enough, simple enough, and familiar enough for the people who will be using this system. It's actually running WindowMaker with Thunar, but whatever. The XFce packages worked like a charm, so who cares?

64MB of RAM, laptop, non-upgradable, 300MHz CPU, etc? Ring a bell?

This system will NOT NEED to create Powerpoint, merely to display it.

Sorry if I'm being insulting, but I already KNOW the problem is with GDM. GDM will not initialize. My Simple Question, is what can I use to find out why?

"
NAME
GDM - The GNOME Display Manager

SYNOPSIS
gdm [options]
gdm-binary [options]
gdmsetup [options]
gdm-stop
gdm-restart
gdm-safe-restart

...

gdm is just a script that runs the actual gdm-binary executable. gdm-
stop is a script that stops the current running daemon immediately,
gdm-restart restarts the current daemon immediately and gdm-safe-
restart restarts the current daemon after everyone has logged out.
gdmsetup is a graphical tool for easily changing the most commonly used
options.

...

OPTIONS
gdm and thus also gdm-binary accept the following options:

-nodaemon
Do not fork into the background

--no-console
No console (local) servers to be run

--preserve-ld-vars
Preserve LD_* variables

--version
Print the GDM version

--help Print simple description of accepted options

gdmsetup accepts all standard GNOME options.

CONFIGURATION
Configuration is done either by running gdmsetup or by editting the
/etc/X11/gdm/gdm.conf (usually, could also be /etc/gdm/gdm.conf) file.
The graphical tool does not support all the options possible so edit‐
ting the configuration file is sometimes necessary.

"

- Is what the man page says

Is there a possible verbose output option or any all the logs to look at.

I know its possible via key combination to reset GNOME config - no idea how & if anything like that also applies to GDM.

No offense taken. I didn't realize that gdm was non-negotiable.

dennisk

My (and several others') GDM was broken after certain -current upgrades. Could that be the case? The symptoms are the same.

Ignore this re-awakening of an age-old thread. I like to close my threads these days.

I'm since learned a lot, and while I was unable to make Zenwalk packages run on Slackware, I was able to make Zenwalk run. I have no idea what the problems were/are, but Zenwalks problem was something in init that I was able to resolve my applying Newton's Method to the init process.

I was unsatisfied with Zenwalk, and decided to play around with other options on a 64Mb limit, including Slim, console login, etc., but the problem is irrelevant now, as the recipients had me wipe everything with Windows 98. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted, and introduced me to lots of lightweight stuff - and got me hooked on both WindowMaker and Rox (for pinboard and file management).

[Edit: how the heck do I change the subject of my thread to include [resolved, irrelevant] in it?]
[Edit 2: short answer, I don't, because this isn't bugzilla. Although it's a long-running feature-request.]