From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Apr 17 17:02:47 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8AEB616A4CE for ; Sat, 17 Apr 2004 17:02:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from smtp3.adl2.internode.on.net (smtp3.adl2.internode.on.net [203.16.214.203]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E6A8D43D1D for ; Sat, 17 Apr 2004 17:02:46 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from malcolm.kay@internode.on.net) Received: from beta.home (ppp139-232.lns1.adl2.internode.on.net [150.101.139.232])i3I02ik2052766; Sun, 18 Apr 2004 09:32:44 +0930 (CST) From: Malcolm Kay Organization: at home To: addymin@pacbell.net, freebsd-questions Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2004 09:32:44 +0930 User-Agent: KMail/1.5.4 References: <40803431.2070504@pacbell.net> In-Reply-To: <40803431.2070504@pacbell.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200404180932.44164.malcolm.kay@internode.on.net> Subject: Re: KDE crashes for 1 user but not the others? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2004 00:02:47 -0000 On Saturday 17 April 2004 04:59, Mike wrote: > Greeting: > > The system: FreeBSD 4.9-stable > > I have KDE 3.14 installed and all was working well for a number of > weeks. Root and one other regular user account had been able to start > and use KDE and Gnome. And both GUI environments operated normally. > > A few days ago KDE under root account wouldn't start (startx). Howevere > KDE started under a regular user account works perfectly (and continues > to do so). > > Furthermore, Gnome (2.4) under root starts (half-way?) up to the point > of the banner and then hangs. > The root account resides on the root partition which is deliberately kept lean and mean to improve the chances of recovery if anything breaks in the system. This means that the root account can easily run out of disk space when running greedy X software. Monsters such as KDE and Gnome are not suitable for running from the root account. In my opinion it is not a good idea to run any X-windows manager from the root account i.e. no startx or xdm logins from root. If you want the convenience of X from a privileged account then run X and KDE or Gnome under a normal user with membership of the 'wheel' group and then 'su' to root. (A possible alternative is to setup a second privileged account with a home directory under /home and work from this. You probably already have such an account under the login name 'toor' but you will need to move its home directory and give it a password.) Malcolm