failure to start graphical login with 10.2

[nfsmyth]

I have done a fresh install of 10.2 on an extermal USB hard drive, after using 10.0. After installation, SUSE boots to the graphical login, but on subsequent booting, the graphical login does not start and I just get the terminal login. If I then login in and type

startx &

gnome starts with no problems. I thought that there was a problem with the installation, so I re-installed 10.2, but the same thing happened. I looked at

/var/log/messages

and at the end of the file there was the message

gdm[4958] Display :0 busy. There is another X server running already.
gdm[4958] Display :0 busy. There is another X server running already.

Why should an Xserver be running already? Is there a lock file not being deleted
on shutting down? How can I fix this? Any help would be much appreciated.
By the way, the runlevel is correct at 5. I checked that.

Thanks.

Noel Smyth

[rong]

Why startx &? What happens with startx but not in background?

[nfsmyth]

Just startx will give the graphical login as well.

I found an interesting thing last night. If I move my mouse while the graphical
login is trying to start (and the Xserver presumably), then the graphical login starts
with no problems. Very strange! I think that there is some sort of bug here. Unless
it is something to do with my ATI Radeon graphics card.