It's always hard to diagnose error messages that are "something like ...."
Still, I can at least explain the "respawn" bit. In /etc/inittab, some
processes are listed to run with "respawn" set -- this tells init that when
the process terminates (more exactly, the process and all its children), it
should start a new instance of the process. What *seems* to be happening on
your system is that xdm, the app that manages logins directly to X, starts,
dies, respawns, dies, etc. -- but init has a safety valve that causes it to
notice these rapid respawns and disable a process that is respawning too
fast (otherwise the respawns would tie up almos all your CPU resources).
Try changing the default runlevel (also set in /etc/inittab) to one that
doesn't automatically run X (probably runllevel 2 on a RH system) and this
will boot you into console mode. If X is set up correctly, you should be
able to switch into x with the command "startx". If this fails, then X isn't
set up right, and that's probably what is causing the respawns. In that
case, use xf86config (or a different X configurator if you prefer) to set up
X correctly.
At 03:05 PM 11/22/99 +0100, Per-anders Ivarsson wrote:
>I�ve got a problem with my Redhat 6.0. when i start my computer it tries
>to start xWindows but then my screen starts to flash. After let�s say 10
>flashes it gives me something like this error description.
>
>According to /var/......./gdm.pid, gdm already seems to be running but
>was murdered mysteriously.
>
>Then at the bottom it says something about respawning to fast and that
>the server is inactivated for 5 min.
>
>What is this supposed to mean?
------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"---
Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo
Palo Alto, CA [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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