Red Hat 8 - startx fail to startup

[Danny Fang]

Hi,

I attempted to fire-up "startx" from the command line in order to bring up my GNOME windows manager. However, it produced the error message shown below:

"XFree86 version 4.2.0(Red Hat 4.2.072/ X Window System protocol version 11, revision 0, vendor release 6600)
Release Date: 23 Jan 2002
If server is more than 6-12 months, or if card is newer than the above date, look for newer version before reporting problem.
Build OS: Linux 2.4.18-11smp i686[elf].

Module Loader present
OS Kernel: Linux version 2.4.20-28.8
Markers(--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting, (++) from command line (!!) notice.

Could restart X server, trying with a fresh configuration. I will now try to restart X server again. "

I tried the following methods to bring up my X-windows:
1) chkconfig --level 0123456 xfs stop
2) chkconfig --level 0123456 xfs restart

After rebooting the machine and doing a "startx", the same error message as seen above is produced.

I also tried modifying the /etc/inittab file, by removing the '5' specified in the runlevel columns, for all 6 entries from tty1 - tty6:
1:234:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty1
2:234:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty2

I also ensured that the line item below exists in the /etc/inittab:
15:5:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 5

The ~/.xsession file is contains the contents of /usr/lib/X11/xinit/xinitrc

I then did a "telinit 5", which also produced the same long error message as seen previously.

Could anyone kindly help me out?

Thanks.
Danny

[Danny Fang]

Attached is the /usr/lib/X11/xinit/xinitrc file for reference purposes.

Pls note that I fired-up "startx" as a root user.

Thanks.

[Stuart Browne]

Ok, a few things to start with..

'chkconfig' is to turn a service on/off for boot-up, and takes thw rods 'on' or 'off' as arguments.

'service' is a command to start and stop services for the currently running system.

Now all that being said, we need to know some things.

Firstly, what are you running this on, hardware wise? You've not said that I can see.

Secondly, why are you using RH8? It's well and truely out-dated and no longer actively supported or updated.

Third, show us the XFree log for the startup. It actually says what issues it has when it starts (or logged in /var/log/X*).

Give us this, and we'll help some more.

[Danny Fang]

Stuart,
Attached is the /var/log/XFree86.log file for your reference.

The output of "procinfo" shows the memory info:
/proc >>procinfo
Linux 2.4.20-28.8 (bhcompile@daffy.perf.redhat.com) (gcc 3.2 20020903 ) #1 Thu Dec 18 12:53:39 EST 2003 1CPU [ISCAP.(none)]

Memory: Total Used Free Shared Buffers Cached
Mem: 1030336 1015188 15148 0 224712 312352
Swap: 1052216 388148 664068

Bootup: Mon Apr 4 18:24:11 2005 Load average: 0.13 0.20 0.20 1/219 12528

user : 11:37:32.43 3.6% page in : 4796078 disk 1: 638045r 8439632w
nice : 0:01:02.23 0.0% page out:111322075 disk 2: 733r 340w
system: 9:49:20.57 3.0% swap in : 105037
idle : 12d 17:39:30.73 93.4% swap out: 320206
uptime: 13d 15:07:25.95 context : 90225511

irq 0: 117764596 timer irq 9: 0 usb-uhci
irq 1: 652 keyboard irq 10: 0 usb-uhci
irq 2: 0 cascade [4] irq 11: 2513264 usb-uhci, eth0
irq 3: 21 irq 12: 1263 PS/2 Mouse
irq 4: 21 irq 14: 186421785 ide0
irq 6: 6 irq 15: 2 ide1
irq 8: 1 rtc

Processor information:
/proc >>cat cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 15
model : 2
model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz
stepping : 4
cpu MHz : 2400.128
cache size : 512 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm
bogomips : 4784.12

PCI Information:
/etc >>/sbin/lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 82845 845 (Brookdale) Chipset Host Bridge (rev 11)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82845 845 (Brookdale) Chipset AGP Bridge (rev 11)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB USB (Hub #1) (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB USB (Hub #2) (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB USB (Hub #3) (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801BA/CA/DB PCI Bridge (rev 81)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82801DB ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 01)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801DB ICH4 IDE (rev 01)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corp. 82801DB SMBus (rev 01)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB AC'97 Audio (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation RIVA TNT2 Model 64 (rev 15)
02:0c.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
02:0d.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)

Kernel version:
/sbin >>./kernelversion
2.4


Greatly appreciate it if you could help me out.

Thanks

[Stuart Browne]

Umm.. the log?

[Danny Fang]

Attached is the XFree86 log file from the /var/log area, which I missed out earlier.

[Chakravarthi]

what is your mouse type, ps/2 or usb? is the disply auto-dectected at the time of installtion or you have installed drivers later?

[Danny Fang]

Chakravarthi,
The mouse attached to this machine is a PS2 mouse.

As for knowing if this is a auto-display detect, since I was the person who had installed the OS.

What is the way for me to tell if this OS build it built with a auto-display detection mechanism?
# uname -a
Linux iscapuat 2.4.20-28.8 #1 Thu Dec 18 12:53:39 EST 2003 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

Any help would be much appreciated.

[Stuart Browne]

There aren't any errors in that log file, so it would appear as if it should be starting properly.

That being said, obviously something is going wrong.

Is 'gdm' or 'xdm' running at the same time, and if you do ALT+F7, what happens?

[Danny Fang]

GDM:
/usr/bin >>ps -ef|grep gdm
root 1264 1 0 Apr04 ? 00:00:00 /usr/bin/gdm-binary -nodaemon

XDM:
/usr/bin >>chkconfig --list xdm
xdm 0:on 1:on 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:on

Alt-F7 could not even get me into the Xwindows manager screen. It just remained at the command line.

Any other ideas?

[Stuart Browne]

Ok. GDM is running in the background (you're in init level 5). X should be running. Usually using ALT-F7 will take you to the GUI session.

Odd.

Try changing back to init 3, ensuring gdm is no longer running, then try 'startx'.