Need help with Interactive's Xwindows

[Bill Kennedy]

kcantrel at digi.lonestar.org (Keith Cantrell) writes:
>Vital information:
[ Keith describes his system... ]
>
>I just installed Interactive release 2.2 and tried to bring up Xwindows and
>it just blanked my screen and locked up my keyboard.  The really bad thing
>is that I could not even swap back to the console to kill any processes, it
>was the big bad RED button time.  I tried various Xvga drivers include the

It's bad, I know it's bad, I have the same problem here from time to time
but I'll not weep in public :-)  You don't have to use the big red switch
though, I think I can save you some fsck cycles.  I always log in as root
on the console and usually (but not always) lurk in the / directory.  That
way if I need a root shell I can switch to console and I'm on my way without
an su.

If you're logged in as root and your video becomes hopelessly hosed (mine
does it only on the console, the SunRiver workstation is fine),

cd /
shutdown -g0 -y

and watch the disk activity light.  When it quits flashing for the last time
(it will flash as it unmounts each file system, go dark briefly, unmount root
and get very dark), hit either the any key or reset.  You'll be back on the
rails in no time with no fsck and now you can try something else to try to
figure out why your video freaks out :-)

Seriously, shut down in the blind, it's lots better than the big red switch.

>be doing wrong?  The Xwindows is pretty much just straight out of the box
>(ie. I didn't change and configuration parameters except what it prompted
>me to do through the installation).

I can't help with that one, mine is too, in fact I saw it work once on the
way to my full up install.  It was nice, but it toppled off into the ditch
somewhere along the way.  I think TCP/IP shot it in the head, but that's
such wild speculation that I'll not dignify it by calling it a WAG.  I'm
going to back up and re-install from scratch.  If X wanders off into the
weeds somewhere along the way, I'll know, and post.  Right now, other than
the SunRiver, I'm X'less :-(
-- 
Bill Kennedy  usenet      {att,cs.utexas.edu,pyramid!daver}!ssbn.wlk.com!bill
              internet    bill at ssbn.WLK.COM   or attmail!ssbn!bill