Ximian Gnome Problem

[Jim Adamson]

Hi,
I have just installed Ximian Gnome 1.4 onto a B132L Workstation running hpux11.11.

I have killed dtlogin.rc and set /etc/rc.config.d/desktop to GNOME. But when I start gdm.rc I get a greyed out screen with no login manager. I have also tried rebooting the workstation. I'm using a HP A4033A monitor that worked fine with CDE.

I have set the XDMCP value in gdm.conf to TRUE and gnome (and CDE) work fine on a PC via Exceed6.1.

Any ideas why I can not get Gnome to run on the local display?

thanks,
Jim

[Alex Glennie]

ps -ef | grep gdm ?

How many ?

try killing all and running gdm from console command line. or try to try to "kickstart" gdm into life .....

imho it's easier not to rely on gdm starting itself but to simply run gdm on the graphics consoles command line ....

ps what is your local Xserver set to : pseudo or true color ? check via sam -> Display ....

[Jim Adamson]

Hi Alex,
there are 2 /opt/gnome/bin/gdm daemons running and 1 /usr/bin/X11/X :0 -auth /var/opt/gnome/gdm/:0.Xauth

I tried killing all daemons and restarting gdm from a command line but nothing changed.

The X server config is a HP Visualize-24(2a) and is set to Pseudocolor.

thanks for the help,
Jim

[Alex Glennie]

clean install of 1.4 or did you have 1.2 installed previously ?

nb gdm prefers true color but don't think that's your problem but worth eliminating just in case ....

I'll have a look and get with some suggestions probably tomorrow.

[Richard Crump]

Jim,

We have exactly the same problem with our J5000 workstation. The only workaround we have found so far is to keep stopping and starting gdm and it sorts itself out (eventually) until the next time the box is rebooted or something. I'd be interested to find out what causes it if you get an answer.

Richard

[Alex Glennie]

Hi guys .... honesty is the best policy .... I too have seen this behaviour on a J6700 I'll see if I can get someone from the gnome dev team to comment on this .... at present I have no other workarounda or explanation either.

[Jim Adamson]

Alex and Richard,
Thanks for the replies - I've changed the Xserver config to True colour with no success. We've also got a couple of J5000s so I'll try installing gnome sometime when its quiet.

Pity Gnome does not start properly on the workstation because it looks and responds great via Exceed.
Jim

[Rick Beldin]

I believe that gdm will log information into a log file in /var/opt/gnome/gdm. The form of the log file name will be:

display_name:display_number.log

so for a local workstation display it should be:

:0.log

Does this have any messages in it?


You can enable gdm debugging by editing the file /etc/opt/gnome/gdm/gdm.conf and changing the Debug section from:

[debug]
Enable=false


to

[debug]
Enable=true

[Mike Stroyan]

As a quick workaround for the problem, once you enable XDMCP you can use
X :0 -query `hostname`
to start a console X server that connects to gdm.

[David Mores]

Does anyone have anything new on this problem?

I see the same behavior on a C160 running hpux 11.11. The only way I have been able to get it to startup on the local display is what Richard Crump has done above.

Is there a newer release on the way sometime soon?

[Robert Hish_1]

Hello,

Just thought i would add my experience here. I ran into this same problem tonight. I had a fresh install fully patched B2000 w/ 11.11
after patching everything i swinstall'd the gnome bundle
after reboot the gdm starts to kick in but it hangs at the grey screen with x cursor

So after reading through the forum and banging on my keyboard for a while i started to thumb through the /etc/X11 junk

What i found was XF86Config and XF86Config.prev
im assuming the .prev was replaced with the latter during gnome install because everything worked before.
When i opened up the .prev file i noticed it had some stuff the other did not.
Namely it had the DefaultDepth and Modes listed and uncommented, whereas the current XF file had neither.
So i mv XF86Config XF86Config.old
and
cp XF86Config.prev XF86Config
then kill any lingerin gdms
then fired up gdm again
and whahlah it works!

somewhere in the install of gnome the XF86Cconfg file was not completed or somethin.

Hope this helps anyone with same situation.

rhish