Roland Dunn wrote:
What I would do, just for testing purposes, is to try a different window manager (than the desktop environment KDE). You can do this by creating a file in your home directory named ".xinitrc" and put a single line in it with the name of a different wm, such as "icewm" or "fluxbox" (make sure to "apt-get install icewm fluxbox" first). Then run "startx". If that gets you a GUI, then you know the problem is KDE-related rather than X-related.Hi, I've just installed DEBIAN (Woody) on my machine. When I run startx to launch X, it seems to launch X, I see the cross mouse cursor, (I can move the mouse cursor) the KDE screen pops up, goes through the first couple of icons on the startup screen (looks like a nucleus and electrons type icon, then a cog icon), then flashes the keyboard/mouse icon, then goes back to standard console screen.
<snip>
Which indicates pretty much the same thing as my suggested test above. Still, I'd try my suggestion, so that you can add "startx" to the equation.But this didn't work either. Things seem to point to the fact that it fails on the mouse/keyboard, but the error log isn't particularly helpful really. Any ideas anyone? What is particularly strange is that if I run XFree86 instead of startx, I get the standard X screen (not KDE), and I can control the mouse fine. So perhaps it isn't the mouse that is the problem.
If you haven't rebooted or run "/etc/init.d/gdm start" since installing gdm, it won't be running.The other thing that's a bit wierd is that I was sure during install I chose gdm to be my default window manager - where is this set? Where is X told which manager to use?
BTW, "gdm" is a "session manager", or "login manager", rather than a "window manager". The "window manager" would be what puts the frames and corner buttons, etc around the various windows that show up on your GUI, and would be such things as icewm, fluxbox, twm, sawmill/fish, and xfce. KDE and Gnome are "Desktop Environments", which are more than window managers, but which typically include (or work with) a window manager.
You can configure which session manager to run with "dpkg-reconfigure gdm" or "dpkg-reconfigure xdm", etc, depending on which wm's you have installed. Or you can play with the symlink at /etc/alternatives/x-session-manager, but it'd probably be better to run "update-alternatives --config x-session-manager".
To configure the default wm, you can play with the symlink at /etc/alternatives/x-window-manager, but if you do that, it'd probably be better to run "update-alternatives --config x-window-manager"
So, any ideas as to either how to fix this or where to look would be *very very* welcome. Thanks, Roland.