Login Problem

[Rick Stevens]

brad.mugleston at comcast.net wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Apr 2004, Rick Stevens wrote:
> 
> 
>>brad.mugleston at comcast.net wrote:
>>
>>>On Wed, 28 Apr 2004, Rick Stevens wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>brad.mugleston at comcast.net wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Rick and gang,
>>>>>
>>>>>I  lost the origional email so I'm going to repeat myself here.
>>>>>
>>>>>I changed the resolution on my screen and now the graphical login 
>>>>>screen is all waco -the characters are about 1/4 screen high.
>>>>>
>>>>>Rick suggested I do the following from a standard console
>>>>>
>>>>>"kill `pidof gdm`"
>>>>>
>>>>>"telinit 3" then "telinit 5"
>>>>>
>>>>>reboot
>>>>>
>>>>>I tried that and got an error on the "Kill" I did it with and 
>>>>>with out the single quote "`" (the one next to the #1 key).  With 
>>>>>out the single quote I got gdm not found.
>>>>
>>>>The "`" are called "graves" and yes, they're next to the 1 key.  Those
>>>>cause the shell to run the command enclosed in the graves and return the
>>>>data spit to stdout to the rest of the command.  So
>>>>
>>>>	kill `pidof gdm`
>>>>
>>>>first causes the shell to run "pidof gdm" (which displays the process ID
>>>>of the "gdm" program).  The PID is passed to "kill" to shut down gdm.
>>>>Since the /etc/inittab has a "respawn" on gdm, it will restart.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>I did the other commands anyway but it did not fix the 
>>>>>login screen.  The desktop screen is fine.
>>>>
>>>>Weird.  Did you check the logs in /var/log/gdm?
>>>>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>
>>>OK I re-tried it with the graves and got the following message, 
>>>as root, 
>>>
>>>kill: usage: kill .......
>>>
>>>the file /var/log/gdm/:0.log ends with these lines
>>>
>>>GetModeLine - scrn: 0 clock: 94500
>>>GetModeLine - hdsp: 1024 hbeg: 1072 hend: 1168 httl: 1376
>>>              vdsp: 768 vbeg: 769 vend: 772 vttl: 808 flags: 5
>>>GetModeLine - scrn: 0 clock: 94500
>>>GetModeLine - hdsp: 1024 hbeg: 1072 hend: 1168 httl: 1376
>>>              vdsp: 768 vbeg: 769 vend: 772 vttl: 808 flags: 5
>>>GetModeLine - scrn: 0 clock: 94500
>>>GetModeLine - hdsp: 1024 hbeg: 1072 hend: 1168 httl: 1376
>>>              vdsp: 768 vbeg: 769 vend: 772 vttl: 808 flags: 5
>>>GetModeLine - scrn: 0 clock: 94500
>>>GetModeLine - hdsp: 1024 hbeg: 1072 hend: 1168 httl: 1376
>>>              vdsp: 768 vbeg: 769 vend: 772 vttl: 808 flags: 5
>>>(END)

I didn't comment before, but those appear OK.

>>>If, as root, I do a "pidof gdm" I get nothing back.  If I do it 
>>>as a user or su I get command not found.
>>
>>The "pidof" binary is /sbin/pidof.  A normal user or root via "su" won't
>>find it as it's not in their path.  An "su -" WILL find it.
>>
>>Try "gdm-binary" instead of gdm.  I think the name changed.
>>
>>
>>>For once I am able to be at my machine during the day - I'm 
>>>building a brick wall in my yard so I'll be in and out.
>>
>>"All in all you're just another brick in the wall" -- Pink Floyd
>>----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> 
> Well this brick in still in the wall - the gdm-binary did 
> something but after all three steps the login is still giving me 
> 1/4 screen characters.

Did it blank out and restart X?  It should have.

> Is there a file I can edit direct that could fix it?

Man, there are so many files involved in getting X to start it's a toss
up as to which one it is.  You can traipse through /etc/X11/gdm and
see if there's something odd in that directory.  It could also be
something in xinitrc or the bluecurve configuration.  I'd really need
to see the actual screwup to even make an intelligent guess.
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-             To iterate is human, to recurse, divine.               -
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