Display problem

[Paul Mackinney]

Les Kopari declaimed:
> 
> Anyone recognize this symptom?
> 
> After bootup, the login screen keeps repeating it's
> prompt after entering valid login info.  Each time,
> the Gnome 1.4 splash comes up, the 21" crt goes black,
> clicks and I'm at the login again.  The splash seems
> to show 4 or 5 icons being highlighted...then nothing.
> 
> After 6 - 8 tries, it exits to a shell login, whining
> about the display driver:
> 
As noted, X is crashing. One reason might be currupt Gnome prefs, but
this doesn't explain why failsafe crashes. Look in
/var/log/XFree86.0.log for the reason.  Since you're running Debian,
changing the run level won't turn off X.  You need to log in as root and
run

# /etc/init.d/gdm stop

to turn off the Gnome Display Manager (assuming that's the graphical
login you're running). Next I really recommend uninstalling or disabling
gdm (sorry, don't have a quick procedure for how) until X works reliably
again.

To start X manually, log in to the terminal and enter the command
'startx'.

HTH, PM
-- 
Paul Mackinney
paul@mackinney.net