From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Sep 27 06:53:48 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2423F3FC for ; Fri, 27 Sep 2013 06:53:48 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from matthew@FreeBSD.org) Received: from smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk (smtp6.infracaninophile.co.uk [IPv6:2001:8b0:151:1:3cd3:cd67:fafa:3d78]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id B8024260B for ; Fri, 27 Sep 2013 06:53:47 +0000 (UTC) Received: from seedling.local ([78.133.112.70]) (authenticated bits=0) by smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk (8.14.7/8.14.7) with ESMTP id r8R6resi061162 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Fri, 27 Sep 2013 07:53:41 +0100 (BST) (envelope-from matthew@FreeBSD.org) DKIM-Filter: OpenDKIM Filter v2.8.3 smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk r8R6resi061162 Authentication-Results: smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk/r8R6resi061162; dkim=none reason="no signature"; dkim-adsp=none (unprotected policy) X-Authentication-Warning: lucid-nonsense.infracaninophile.co.uk: Host [78.133.112.70] claimed to be seedling.local Message-ID: <52452B6B.2030402@FreeBSD.org> Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 08:53:31 +0200 From: Matthew Seaman User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; rv:17.0) Gecko/20130801 Thunderbird/17.0.8 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: leeoliveshackelford@surewest.net Subject: Re: Gnome green screen of death References: <20130926193435.DRK47122@ms5.mc.surewest.net> In-Reply-To: <20130926193435.DRK47122@ms5.mc.surewest.net> X-Enigmail-Version: 1.5.2 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="p246a6QNrKBK5RHP0PKJCv2NLufr5LxC6" X-Virus-Scanned: clamav-milter 0.97.8 at lucid-nonsense.infracaninophile.co.uk X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Spam-Status: No, score=1.0 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00, DCC_CHECK, RCVD_IN_XBL, RDNS_NONE,SPF_SOFTFAIL autolearn=no version=3.3.2 X-Spam-Level: * X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.2 (2011-06-06) on lucid-nonsense.infracaninophile.co.uk Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 06:53:48 -0000 This is an OpenPGP/MIME signed message (RFC 4880 and 3156) --p246a6QNrKBK5RHP0PKJCv2NLufr5LxC6 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On 27/09/2013 04:34, leeoliveshackelford@surewest.net wrote: > Good afternoon, dear FreeBSD enthusiast. I have installed X11 and Gnom= e on my computer equipped with FreeBSD 9.1. The X11=20 > and Gnome packages were taken from the d.v.d.-r.o.m. that=20 > contained the operating system. The computer is an H.P. Z220=20 > with an Intel Xeon quad-core processor. I do not want Gnome=20 > to start automatically on bootup. I wish to call it from the=20 > command line on the local console. When I have finished=20 > working with Gnome, I expect the operating system to return me=20 > to console session from which Gnome was called. I have=20 > started Gnome with the command "exec gdm-session". I do not=20 > know if the "exec" keyword is necessary, but it worked. When I=20 > am finished working with Gnome, I click on the logoff (or=20 > logout?) button. The screen turns solid green with none of=20 > icons, characters, image, or splash. The computer does not=20 > respond to the keyboard. When I cut the power to the computer,=20 > and then reboot, I receive a sequence of messages complaining=20 > that ada0s3a, ada0s3d, and so on, are corrupt, and that I must=20 > run fdsk. What am I doing wrong here? The following error messages, w= hich are shown only partially because they flash quickly on the screen, a= ppear before Gnome starts: =20 There's a number of things: -- you seem to be logging into your X environment as root. This is not a particularly good idea. Much better to create yourself a normal user account for that, and use su(1) or sudo(1) to take rootly powers as required. -- You don't say what sort of graphics card the system has. If you look at /var/log/Xorg.log.0 (or something similar to that) it will have that information amongst a lot of other stuff. The nature of the graphics card is important, because some models don't switch back to console mode from graphics mode very well. It's a known bug, and unfortunately if you have one of those models the best advice at the moment is to run a display manager (xdm, kdm, slim) and always use a graphical login. -- The use of 'exec' in ~/.startx is correct, but not if you're typing that from the shell command prompt. What exec does is *replace* the current process with the one you called. That's fine if you're replacing the (very small) shell script that is ~/.startx, but not if you're replacing your login shell. The recommended way to start X from the command line is to set up a ~/.startx script (which could contain just your 'exec gdm-session' command, or quite a bit more. Then type startx to (like it says on the tin...) start X. Cheers, Matthew --=20 Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey --p246a6QNrKBK5RHP0PKJCv2NLufr5LxC6 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG/MacGPG2 v2.0.16 (Darwin) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iKYEARECAGYFAlJFK3JfFIAAAAAALgAoaXNzdWVyLWZwckBub3RhdGlvbnMub3Bl bnBncC5maWZ0aGhvcnNlbWFuLm5ldEI1NTUyQTk2Mjc0RUQyNDg1NzM0MEVCNEYw QzhFNEU3NjBBRTkwOEMACgkQ8Mjk52CukIygGwCfcgro/UG4bI2DFJe+yjiUPXaX yiwAoJV0XbGb5ZBKk3OO3dv7cgkaheFe =wm5O -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --p246a6QNrKBK5RHP0PKJCv2NLufr5LxC6--