[lug] X windows not starting

[Michael J. Hammel]

Thus spoke Chad Wasinger
> I have installed a fresh load of RH 7.1 and it cannot start x windows, it
> boots to the login prompt and then the screen flashes. After a few minutes
> of flahing it gives an error that " x ????????? suspended for 5 minutes,
> trying to start to fast" I don't remember the exact error. Has anyone heard
> of this?

The messages probably comes from init as it tries to spawn the X process.
The X process starts and dies immediately, possibly because the driver you
configured doesn't really work with your video setup (though that's a
pretty wild guess).  The whole scenario is

1. init starts X (aka "spawns the X process")
2. X dies
3. 1 & 2 repeat very quickly.
4. init notices that this spawning is happening too quickly and decides to
   pause a bit, hoping this will allow time for other software to settle
   down and give the X process a chance to start.  

You'll want to boot into maintenence mode (init level 1, I think) and
disable the gdm, kdm or xdm process (depending on if you're running gnome,
kde or the default graphical login shell, repsectively) in /etc/inittab
(just comment it out).  Then you can boot normally and try to fix the
problem with the X driver.  The trick is how to boot into maintenence mode.
I never remember how to do that, but I'm sure someone here will provide that
piece of the puzzle.


-- 
Michael J. Hammel           |  I can please only one person per day.  Today is 
The Graphics Muse           |  not your day.  Tomorrow's not looking good 
mjhammel at graphics-muse.org  |  either. -- Dilbert
http://www.graphics-muse.com