It could be that his directory is out of space, (or quota if it is in use). /tmp and /home are directories to check when there are X startup problems.
Usually, if you delete the .gconf or .gconfd directory, gnome will start fine. It is usually best to troubleshoot X from runlevel 3, and run X -probeonly, or system-config-display, but based on the symptoms you described, it sounds like the user's config files, as Mark mentioned. - scottm -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of markw Sent: Saturday, November 04, 2006 9:42 PM To: Main Discussion List for KPLUG Subject: Re: gdm won't start GNOME session Gus Wirth wrote: > At the Installfest today at "That Technical Bookstore" I ran into a > weird problem with gdm (Gnome Display Manager) on a brand new Lenovo > (IBM) T60 with Fedora Core 5 installed. > > The laptop would start up in run level 5 (graphical login) with gdm > providing the login service. If root logged in, X started just fine > and went into GNOME. If the regular user (jon) logged in, X would seem > to start, there would be a cursor (pointer) on a black screen but > GNOME wouldn't start. Eventually it would time out and revert back to gdm. > > A second user account was created (testu) which worked properly with > the gdm login. In other words, X would start and provide a normal > GNOME session. > > If the laptop started up in run level 3 (multi-user text mode) and > then have X started using: > $ startx > > everything worked fine for all users. > > The problem seems to be in how gdm determines sessions. It's like it > can't find any Xclients for user jon, or maybe there is a session > stored somewhere that is hosed. Or there could be a permission problem. > > I poked around a lot in all the ~/.gnome* dirs and ~./gconf* dirs but > I haven't really seen anything yet. > > Anyone seen this before? The workaround for now is to start in text > mode and use startx but I'd like to get this guys gdm fixed. Maybe I > need to switch it to kdm or xdm instead. > > Gus > > Something is tweaked in jon's ~/. If it's unimportant, just blow away his account and create a new one. (the ms solution) If it was a previous /home from a previous load, then you need to start digging into his .gnome* files to figure out what is up. Mark -- Mark Wolfe Lakeside, Ca. http://www.wolfenet.org gpg fingerprint = 42B6 EFEB 5414 AA18 01B7 64AC EF46 F7E6 82F6 8C71 Linux. The Internet's Operating System. http://www.linux.org -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
