help

[Richard Kettlewell <richard@elmail.co.uk>]

Can anyone else offer any suggestions?

Erick Branderhorst writes:

>Some way my system can't start X11 properly, It tries to do so and then stop
>tries to do so and  stops etc etc.
> On and on, only reboot/hard reset helps to stop this
>Do you know an easy way to switch off xdm (? I think that sould be the one to 
>be stopped). Harddisk kernel image and floppy image give the same result

Best bet is to boot the machine in such a way that xdm never runs -
you may have to do this with a boot floppy if xdm runs automatically
from your hard disc boot - and whichever of /etc/inittab or
/etc/init.d/xdm it is.  Then figure out as much of the problem as you
can and report it to debian-bugs.

If you can't boot the machine in such a way, there are several
possiblities.

If it's running from init it might stop by itself after a while - init
has some checks to try and stop runaway processes.  But that might not
work, and I don't think it runs from init any more anyway.

You may well be able to hit ^C at the right time - it needs to be just
before the display switches to graphics mode.  This'll be the easiest
way if it works.

You may be able to hit the keystroke to switch to a different virtual
console if you pick the time right - this has stopped xdm doing the
wrong thing at least once in my experience.  Try switching to a
text mode VC while in graphics mode; also try switching to the VC X
will run on (probably tty7) while still in text mode.

Alternatively you could kill xdm directly; you'll need to be able to
type commands inbetween the screen switching from text to graphics
mode and back, which is hard but IME just about possible.

You need to find the pid of xdm; try `ps uxaw | grep xdm` (or just `px
uxaw` and look through the list manually.  On mine it's 94, it'll
probably be different on yours.  Then you want something like `kill
94` or `kill -9 94` if that doesn't work.

ttfn/rjk