From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Jun 10 19:27:41 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id TAA22816 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 19:27:41 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from trantor.galaxia.com (terminus.galaxia.com [204.255.210.97]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id TAA22773 for ; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 19:27:27 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from dave@galaxia.com) Received: from localhost (dave@localhost) by trantor.galaxia.com (8.8.8/8.8.7) with SMTP id WAA16084; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 22:27:14 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from dave@galaxia.com) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 22:27:14 -0400 (EDT) From: "David H. Brierley" To: Jon Misc cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: X refuses to start In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Mon, 18 May 1998, Jon Misc wrote: > > Hello. I'm relatively new to FreeBSD and X and I've run into some > trouble. A few days ago, I installed X on my computer and configured it > to start at boot time. It worked fine for a couple of days, but > yesterday, I booted FreeBSD and got as far as the text login screen. When > X tried to start, the screen blanked as usual, but I never got the X login Someone else replied that FreeBSD does not change things on it's own, so if it worked once it should still work. While this is true with FreeBSD itself, and with UNIX in general, it is not always true with X/11. The X server creates various files and directories in /tmp and does not always clean up after itself very nicely, especially around a reboot. Look in the /tmp directory to see if there are any files or directories that begin with ".X" (i.e. type "ls -ld .X*"). If there are, remove them and then try starting X again. If you are starting X by virtue of the fact that you have the xdm program running, find the pid number of the xdm process and send it a "-1" signal. I recommend you add the following entry to "/etc/rc.local": rm -rf /tmp/.X* This will help prevent the problem in the future. Of course, the problem could be something else entirely in which case these words are just the manic ramblings of a middle aged UNIX hacker. :) -- David H. Brierley dave@galaxia.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message