From owner-freebsd-questions Mon Mar 25 2:44:39 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from andrsn.stanford.edu (andrsn.Stanford.EDU [171.66.112.163]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2EAF837B434 for ; Mon, 25 Mar 2002 02:44:12 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (localhost.stanford.edu [127.0.0.1]) by andrsn.stanford.edu (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g2PAiBg94198; Mon, 25 Mar 2002 02:44:11 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from andrsn@andrsn.stanford.edu) Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 02:44:11 -0800 (PST) From: Annelise Anderson To: Denny White Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: xdm, xwrapper, startx problems In-Reply-To: <20020324182650.O346-100000@mobile2.cableone.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Sun, 24 Mar 2002, Denny White wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Ok, I've tried running xdm. X won't load > at all for root, & tries for users but > stops. Startx works for root only. When > I run Xwrapper, I get the following: > execve failed for /usr/X11R6/bin/XFree86 (errno 2) > I know I shouldn't run X as root for sure, > but right now, that's the only way I can > do it. I'm running 4.3 stable on a Toshiba > 4015cdt laptop. Everything else is running > fine. Use the laptop for email & studying > docs, info, etc. while I'm away on my job. > I know I can maybe do a cvsup & rebuild > everything & make it work again for awhile, > but eventually it always screws up again. > Can someone at least tell me why this > happens everytime & just point me to read > what's pertinent. Not looking for easy fix, > just trying to get X working for users & > more than willing to read whatever I need > to. Only problem is, I've had a really hard > time in the past understanding what I read > on this problem. Thanks for any & all help! > > Never eat more than > you can lift. > Miss Piggy > Thank you for this advice from Miss Piggy; it seems like a good rule. My experient with X-4, which you are using? is that if you are root as a consequence of using su -m, it puts files in your user's home directory (e.g., .Xauthority) that are owned by root: user and really mess things up. KDE also has this problem. If you delete these files, and then startx as a user (assuming you kill xdm, which I think is a painful way to start X on a machine that's basically a workstation for a single user, even though you may want several logins open at once), it should work. xwrapper generally doesn't have to be "run", it takes care of itself if it's there. If you get other messages on login that the user doesn't "own" the proper files, you can try deleting these too and then using startx as a user. X has gotten so much more security-conscious, and security is always a pain. :( Annelise P.S. I used to think that it was good to alias su to su -m in your shell startup files, but I'm wondering now if that's such a great idea. -- Annelise Anderson Author of: FreeBSD: An Open-Source Operating System for Your PC Available from: BSDmall.com and amazon.com Book Website: http://www.bittreepress.com/FreeBSD/introbook/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message