[H-GEN] weird X hassles

[Paul Gearon]

[ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and
Unix-related topics. ]

Hi all,

Thanks for the advice on my problems with the IDE drive.  I finally found the
cause...  lack of sleep.  Turns out I was compiling the kernel fine, but I was
copying bzImage directly into /boot when my default kernel in lilo had a
different name (bzImage.smp - Doh!).  Found it, fixed it, works fine.

Now I'm back onto another hassle.  Again, this one is due to my own stupidity,
only this time I don't know how to fix it.

To support my new graphics card I needed XFree86-3.3.5.  Since I don't know all
that much about XFree86 I figured that I probably needed to get the entire
distribution (minus the servers I didn't need).  I then went and merrily
installed this over the top of my RH distribution.  (I can feel you all wincing
from here  :-)

Anyway, it didn't work too badly, though it did break an important link
(/etc/X11/X -> /usr/X11R6/bin/XF86_SVGA.  Thanks go to Andrae for pointing this
out).  Once the link was patched it all started to work..... except one thing.

I CANNOT get xdm or an equivalent to work.  Well, the welcome screen works, but
it can't start a window manager.  I had been using gdm (default under RH6) but
it's as dead as xdm (so's kdm).  I've checked the config files in /etc/X11/gdm
and it's all fine.  The /etc/X11/xdm files also look good (though I haven't gone
through them quite as thoroughly as I have with gdm - they're more complex). 
xdm and gdm both give up trying to start a window manager and give me twm.  kdm
just gives up and asks me to log in again.  I know the window managers are fine
since startx works (I'm using it now).

Out of frustration I tried reinstalling as many related rpms as I could think
of.  I've done gdm, most of the XFree86 packages (overwriting my new
XFree86-3.3.5, but all I really needed was XF86_SVGA) and a few more, but
nothing works.

It's driving me nuts to the point that I've run strace to see what gdm actually
does (gdm is supposedly simpler and smaller than xdm).  I've found lots of
interesting details about optional configuration files which aren't mentioned
in the docs, but very little else.  I'm offering a case of beer [0] to whoever
gets the answer first [1]  :-)

[0] or a bottle of one's favourite beverage
[1] getting the idea of my desperation here?

-- 
Regards,
Paul

Paul Gearon
gearon at computer.org

Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane
mittam.
(Translation from latin: "I have a catapult. Give me all the money, or I will
fling an enormous rock at your head.")

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