Ken --
Without trying to go through the details of what you did, let me just
explain that you were ***very*** confused about what X is, and about its
relation to KDE, Gnome, etc.
X (short for X11R6, sometimes for XFree86) is a server that manages a
graphical user interface for Unix/Linux. Running under the X server are
desktop anvironments, window managers, and various specific apps. KDE and
Gnome fall into this category.
startx starts the X server (the program connected to the symlink X - it will
actually be XF86_SVGA, or XF86_Mach32, or XF86_something_else) by way of yet
another program called xinit. Depending on how your system is set up, it
might run KDE, Gnome, xvwm95, or other things I'm forgetting right now.
If you run X directly, it won't know how to initialize and will leave you at
the gray (? on my system, it's a pale blue) screen with the ugly big-X mouse
pointer. But that's just because no window manager has been loaded, so it
has no way to respond.
At 03:53 PM 7/14/99 -0700, Ken Wilson wrote [in part]:
>I better try to clarify a few things:
> ....
>
> when I type startx, I go into KDE or Gnome. no problem. When I type X,
>(which i am assuming is a different program required by WINE, I get the
>gray screen.
>
>If I'm wrong, please clarify it for me, but I see startx as a method of
>starting either KDE or Gnome. The X must be a different program since
>it doesn't work and has a different configuration program than the
>others. If it went to the same place, why wouldn't it work?
> ....
------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"---
Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo
Palo Alto, CA 94303-3603 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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