[KLUG Members] X crashes

[Bruce Smith]

> > I'd guess that xfs is dying for some reason.  You can manually remove
> > the pid file, if that is required to start it again.  Those file
> > normally live in the directory:  /var/run/
> 
> It sure is dying.  It complains about something in the drakfont directory 
> being unreadable.  I've tried "restoring" that directory from my original HD 
> with no joy.  

You could try removing that directory from the xfs font path. 
(as long as X will run without those fonts)

> > It'd be interesting to find what error message (if any) xfs is reporting
> > when it dies.  I'm not a Mandrake user, so I don't know where those
> > messages might be redirected to.  Check all the log files (/var/log/)
> > after you start xfs, or you could try running xfs from the shell prompt
> > on a console to see if it spits out any useful errors.
> 
> Nothing when I started it manually, and /var/log/syslog is what was 
> complaining about the drakfont directory I mentioned above.

Was it a problem with a specific font, or the index (fonts.dir)?
Posting the actual message might give some insight.

> > > plz excuse the brevity and terseness, typing on zaurus is less than
> > > enjoyable.
> >
> > You should be able to get to a console window, and there are plenty of
> > command line mail clients for Linux (mutt, pine, ...).   :-)
> 
> I know, I'm cursing myself for relying on on kmail's pop and smtp capabilities 
> instead of doing it the "*nix way"...
> 
> I've gone back to running from the original HDD.  I suspect that perhaps 
> something is quirky about the 45 Gb HD.  It's a WD Caviar and used LBA...  
> I'm going to look into potential issues with that, as the partition table 
> isn't "clean" showing "free space" between partitions when I didn't put them 
> there during setup.zoolinux.org/mailman/listinfo/members.
> 
> To the best of my knowledge, the HD is known-good.

It wouldn't hurt to verify with HD with "badblocks" to make sure.

--------------------------------------------
Bruce Smith                bruce@armintl.com
System Administrator / Network Administrator
Armstrong International, Inc.
Three Rivers, Michigan  49093  USA
http://www.armstrong-intl.com/
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