X Server problems on Fedora Core 3

[Bob McClure Jr]

On Wed, Oct 12, 2005 at 06:25:23AM -0700, John Reynolds wrote:
> Rick Stevens opened the Vault of Knowledge and brought forth:
> 
> >
> >On Tue, 2005-10-11 at 14:28 -0700, John Reynolds wrote:
> >> Hello.
> >> 
> >> I had a system crash during an up2date session.  The GUI is a casualty.
> >> 
> >> When the system tries to boot into the GUI mode, it goes blank, puts up 
> a 
> >> message about a failure to start : the fixed font is not found and 
> >> unix:/7100 server is not found.  I put it into text mode startup, 
> rebooted 
> >> and tried again.
> >
> >That's the X font server not running.  Try "service xfs start".  Also
> >make sure you run "chkconfig --level 5 xfs on" to ensure it'll start
> >the next time run level 5 (GUI) is started.
> 
> That fixed it: ran both, reset inittab to level 5, and rebooted.  And when 
> it came back, the mouse driver was functioning again and the GUI came up 
> clean.
> 
> I had run xfs from the init.d directory, instead of using the service 
> command; I didn't think that made the difference.  I have a hunch that the 
> chkconfig straightened whatever was bent.  What file(s) does that
> groom?

It makes (or removes) symlinks in /etc/rc.d/rcx.d (where x is the
runlevel) to the scripts in /etc/rc.d/init.d.  The init process
executes "KNNsomething stop" and "SNNsomething start" for the given
runlevel.

> I 
> like to understand the mechanisms, not just the commands, it improves the 
> troubleshooting.

Good on you.

> Many thanks!
> 
> John Reynolds
> IBM-by-the-Bay
> San Francisco CA

Cheers,
-- 
Bob McClure, Jr.             Bobcat Open Systems, Inc.
robertmcclure at earthlink.net  http://www.bobcatos.com
Peace at any price is inflationary.