X won't start in RedHat 9 -- need help!

[bradmatic]

Hello everyone,

I've been running RedHat 9 on a Dell OptiPlex gx400 using Gnome for quite some time with no problems. I recently installed a KDE cd-burner called k3b and entered into KDE as root to burn a cd. The cd burned fine, and I logged out. I got a black screen, so I restarted the computer. After booting back into my kernel, X wouldn't start (I don't think). The "X" cursor would appear, but other than that, the screen was blank. When I press a key or a mouse button, a weird screen would appear, almost like a m$ bsod, except with a gray box in the middle. All the gray box has in it is this:

/\ _/\ ?


Yes No


Entering "yes" a few times just sends me a to a screen where it says the graphical server has tried to restart several times unsuccessfully. Entering "no" just sends me back into the same blackscreen-bluescreen loop. Either way I'm forced to either ctrl-alt-delete or restart the machine...


Any ideas?

[Nerderello]

sounds like somehow your /etc/X11/XF86Config file has become corrupted. Try having a look at the message log after you've attempted to start X (press Ctrl Alt F1 to get a text console (Ctrl Alt F7 to go back to GUI)), enter something like "tail --lines 45 /var/log/messages" and see if it tells you anything more.

Or you can try redoing your X config by either editing the above file (have a look at the tutorials on the subject in this forum) or by using :-


try the following to configure your /etc/X11/XF86Config file (as root) :-



XFree86 -configure



the screen will blank and, hopefully, come back, having created a file called /root/XF86Config.new . Now test this config file out by :-




XFree86 -xf86config /root/XF86Config.new



If you get the raw X screen (grey cross hatched screen with an X as a mouse coursor) then you have a working config file that just needs copying to /etx/X11/XF86Config (use the "cp" command). First cancel out of the raw X screen by Ctrl Alt BackSpace (not Del) and the do the copy. Then either reboot or type "startx" and with luck you'll have gdm or kdm to logon with.

If not, have a look in /var/log/XFree86.0.log (use "cat" or "tail" command) to see if iy gives any helpful messages.

have fun

Nerderello