On 10-Feb-99 Martijn van den Burg wrote:

Hi,

I am using the graphical login of KDM to login in my SuSE 5.3 system (kernel 2.0.35) but _sometimes_ KDM does not 'catch on' after booting, and keeps respawning.

What actually happens is: - all the ususal boot messages flash by - 'Starting kdm...' - screen goes black after one very short flash of something while KDM tries to connect to the X-server (I presume) and fails - KDM respawns and etcetera.

The only way to stop this is the three-finger salute, switch off the pc and restart after a while.

What causes this intermittent problem and how can I solve it?

The XDM crash/respawn is indicative of a segfault (signal 11). Look in /var/log/xdm.errors to find the reason why it failed. There are some X applications which consistently cause the SuSE version of XFree86-3.3.3 to crash in this manner (see previous postings to this list). The XFree86-3.3.3-1 rpms SuSE recently put up on their ftp server have cured this precise problem, but I am stil; seeing segfault crashes occasionally which appear to be associated with kfm. However if you are seeing signal 11 occurring randomly and it tends to appear in the same place it is quite possible there is a dodgy location in your RAM. A segfault is a segment addressing violation; programs written in C typically contain many pointers and if a flipped bit occurs in an address it is _far_ more likely to point to an invalid segment than a valid one (due to the emormous size of the address space). Thus if you load an address into a dogy location in RAM it will cause a segfault. There is a web page at <<A HREF="http://www.bitwizard.nl/sig11/"><A HREF="http://www.bitwizard.nl/sig11/</A">http://www.bitwizard.nl/sig11/</A</A>>> that discusses how to diagnose segfaults and how to eliminate them. Ralph -- rclark@virgosolutions.demon.co.uk Ralph Clark, Virgo Solutions Ltd (UK) __ _ / / (_)__ __ ____ __ * Powerful * Flexible * Compatible * Reliable * / /__/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ / *Well Supported * Thousands of New Users Every Day* /____/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\ The Cost Effective Choice - Linux Means Business! - To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e Check out the SuSE-FAQ at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A">http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A</A>> and the archiv at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A">http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A</A>>