X

[<mcclosk@ling.ucsc.edu>]

Robert-Jan Kuijvenhoven <R.Kuijvenhoven@kabelfoon.nl> wrote:

|> X has the right permissions. But I thought of something else that
|> might be causing the ploblem. To get X11 working (as root), I had
|> to change XF86_VGA16 to XF86_S3. The book 'Running Linux' suggested
|> to change the link /usr/bin/X11/X to point to XF86_S3. I noticed
|> the file /usr/bin/X11/X wasn't a link. So I made a backup of the
|> file and created a new link that pointed to XF86_S3. This way I
|> could start X11 (but only as root).

This must be the problem (I had an identical problem when I bought a
pre-(mis)installed debian system). It's a peculiarity of Debian that
/usr/bin/X11/X is *not* a symbolic link to the `real' server. In
Debian, /usr/bin/X11/X is a wrapper program which, among other things,
contains an instruction to run the `real' X server binary. This
wrapper program reads a configuration file /etc/X11/Xserver to find
out which server to run and who is allowed to run it.

This is documented in /usr/doc/xbase/README.Debian (I believe it's a
security precaution).

Jim