Crash on gdm startup... or freeze rather.

dragos240 · 2009-08-25 19:07:40

Hi, this also happened when I was setting up gdm on another computer, when gdm started, the system froze, the mouse would not move, the keyboard would not type, and ctrl + alt + backspace didn't kill X. I have to power it off manually. This is what is happening after the gdm daemon loads. Does anyone know a solution, I set arch up a while ago and didn't get this issue, so I know it's not the computer, I may have missed a step but I don't know what it could be. Does anyone know what is wrong here and what I can do to fix it?

loafer · 2009-08-25 21:05:05

Start by booting into single user mode and ensure that xf86-input-keyboard and xf86-input-mouse are installed and that you're starting the hal daemon.

dragos240 · 2009-08-26 12:20:50

loafer wrote:

Start by booting into single user mode and ensure that xf86-input-keyboard and xf86-input-mouse are installed and that you're starting the hal daemon.

I don't remember installing those.

sHyLoCk · 2009-08-26 12:44:44

dragos240 wrote:

loafer wrote:
Start by booting into single user mode and ensure that xf86-input-keyboard and xf86-input-mouse are installed and that you're starting the hal daemon.
I don't remember installing those.

You should have. Check out the Xorg wiki page.

dragos240 · 2009-08-26 21:14:43

sHyLoCk wrote:

dragos240 wrote:
loafer wrote:
Start by booting into single user mode and ensure that xf86-input-keyboard and xf86-input-mouse are installed and that you're starting the hal daemon.
I don't remember installing those.
You should have. Check out the Xorg wiki page.

I did, it works now

markg85 · 2009-08-26 22:48:39

Hi,

I'm having the exact same issue and followed the Xorg arch wiki page to the letter. Also did the keyboard and mouse parts.
I tried it with hal (auto generating xorg.conf stuff) and just by using hwd, X -configure and nvidia-xconfig. The most i get (and that's only in some rare cases) is a x screen with a few white windows but a total system crash. reset has to be pushed to reboot.

My Xorg log shows absolutely no errors!

One thing i do notice is when i type "gdm" it somehow returns with the message "Bus error" but i have no clue what that could mean.
Also if i use hal to autodetect my xorg and just type "startx" to.. start x then my system still crashes but doesn't log a singly line in the /var/log/Xorg.0.log and Xorg.0.log.old! quite odd.

When i do generate a xorg.conf from hwd -xa (or just -x) and start x there is an error there : Failed to load module "dri" so i turned the loading of dri off and then i have only warnings about font paths that hwd adds. not a single error!

I hope someone can help me with this.
I use Arch Linux on my notebook (no problems and typing this message from) but on my desktop it seems to be quite a pain to get it working.

I don't know if it helps resolving this issue but here is where i installed it on (desktop)
- Intel Q6600 cpu
- x64 arch installation
- nvidia 8600GT gpu

Thanx,
Mark.

sHyLoCk · 2009-08-27 00:27:38

Did you install the whole gnome and gnome-extra packages?

markg85 · 2009-08-27 02:06:21

sHyLoCk wrote:

Did you install the whole gnome and gnome-extra packages?

I didn't even install gnome yet. only GDM that is related to gnome.
I installed SLiM (also a login manager in the arch linux repo) and it simply crashes my pc when i start it. Same when i do just "startx" (which is NOT starting SLiM or GDM. i haven't set those options yet).

Just an idea but could it work to enable the testing repository and update everything to testing? perhaps this issue is fixed in testing (just guessing nad hoping here!)

But again.. i find it extremely strange that X is not even logging anything when i start it when it was using HAL. (so, no xorg.conf file) it does log stuff with an xorg.conf file but nothing worth reporting.

Last edited by markg85 (2009-08-27 02:08:21)

sHyLoCk · 2009-08-27 02:53:10

Install Xterm and put exec xterm in ~/.xinitrc . See this.

hunterthomson · 2009-08-27 02:55:03

markg85 wrote:

sHyLoCk wrote:
Did you install the whole gnome and gnome-extra packages?
I didn't even install gnome yet. only GDM that is related to gnome.
I installed SLiM (also a login manager in the arch linux repo) and it simply crashes my pc when i start it. Same when i do just "startx" (which is NOT starting SLiM or GDM. i haven't set those options yet).
Just an idea but could it work to enable the testing repository and update everything to testing? perhaps this issue is fixed in testing (just guessing nad hoping here!)
But again.. i find it extremely strange that X is not even logging anything when i start it when it was using HAL. (so, no xorg.conf file) it does log stuff with an xorg.conf file but nothing worth reporting.

It sounds like it has nothing to do with GDM. Before installing GDM or Gnome get Xorg working. You should be able to startx and have it load up TWM window manager just fine.

Go though the Xorg wiki from start to finish and it should work fine then. It sounds like you need to make sure you have the stuff installed that you need. Make sure Hal is installed and running and make sure you have a xorg.conf file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf Also, what video card do you have?

On top of that as long as the keyboard is not locked up you can hit ctrl+alt+F2 or F2-6 to mover to a different virtual terminal. F7 is where the Xserver is running and F1 is the stdout for the Xsession and all applications that are running in it. Also, if you have another computer running on the network you can SSH into the computer and stop Xserver from there. The Linux Kernel will almost never crash so you can always SSH into it.

Last edited by hunterthomson (2009-08-27 03:00:30)

markg85 · 2009-08-27 11:49:19

sHyLoCk wrote:

Install Xterm and put exec xterm in ~/.xinitrc . See this.

Or xinit or startx.. i know the drill and it doesn't work. xterm is installed and the most i ever saw is a basic startx image before i had a system crash.

hunterthomson wrote:

markg85 wrote:
sHyLoCk wrote:
Did you install the whole gnome and gnome-extra packages?
I didn't even install gnome yet. only GDM that is related to gnome.
I installed SLiM (also a login manager in the arch linux repo) and it simply crashes my pc when i start it. Same when i do just "startx" (which is NOT starting SLiM or GDM. i haven't set those options yet).
Just an idea but could it work to enable the testing repository and update everything to testing? perhaps this issue is fixed in testing (just guessing nad hoping here!)
But again.. i find it extremely strange that X is not even logging anything when i start it when it was using HAL. (so, no xorg.conf file) it does log stuff with an xorg.conf file but nothing worth reporting.
It sounds like it has nothing to do with GDM. Before installing GDM or Gnome get Xorg working. You should be able to startx and have it load up TWM window manager just fine.
Go though the Xorg wiki from start to finish and it should work fine then. It sounds like you need to make sure you have the stuff installed that you need. Make sure Hal is installed and running and make sure you have a xorg.conf file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf Also, what video card do you have?
On top of that as long as the keyboard is not locked up you can hit ctrl+alt+F2 or F2-6 to mover to a different virtual terminal. F7 is where the Xserver is running and F1 is the stdout for the Xsession and all applications that are running in it. Also, if you have another computer running on the network you can SSH into the computer and stop Xserver from there. The Linux Kernel will almost never crash so you can always SSH into it.

I know it has nothing to do with GDM but just tried that one.. you never know ^_^ but it failed as hard as SLiM or just startx.
Your hal and xorg part is strange. Hal is there to replace xorg.conf. if hal is not installed you must have an xorg.conf file. Anyway i redid the xorg part exactly like the wiki page describes it and still the exact same issue.

My video card (like said 2 posts back ) is 8600 GT. Ubuntu and Fedora where running just fine with it when i had those installed. So it most be possible to get it working.

I didn't try the ssh stuff yet but i will give that a try in a few minutes although if it works it only saves me reboots.

markg85 · 2009-08-27 15:09:22

Oke, i solved it.
Since i wasn't far with archlinux i just reinstalled it all from the cd. now x is working just fine with the nvidia driver. no problem at all.
The only thing i did different then compared to last time is that right after the archlinux installation was done i installed xorg instead of alsa.. i can't imagine that makes a difference but that's the only thing i did different this time.

hunterthomson · 2009-08-27 21:21:08

markg85 wrote:

Oke, i solved it.
Since i wasn't far with archlinux i just reinstalled it all from the cd. now x is working just fine with the nvidia driver. no problem at all.
The only thing i did different then compared to last time is that right after the archlinux installation was done i installed xorg instead of alsa.. i can't imagine that makes a difference but that's the only thing i did different this time.

I have had problems like that before. Sometimes it is just some little thing that got missed in the install. Glad it is working now. Ya, the SSH will only save you from reboots but that is a good thing. Even though EXT3 is rock sold and you will never lose data, it is not good to hard reboot.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-08-25 19:07:40

Crash on gdm startup... or freeze rather.

#2 2009-08-25 21:05:05

Re: Crash on gdm startup... or freeze rather.

#3 2009-08-26 12:20:50

Re: Crash on gdm startup... or freeze rather.

#4 2009-08-26 12:44:44

Re: Crash on gdm startup... or freeze rather.

#5 2009-08-26 21:14:43

Re: Crash on gdm startup... or freeze rather.

#6 2009-08-26 22:48:39

Re: Crash on gdm startup... or freeze rather.

#7 2009-08-27 00:27:38

Re: Crash on gdm startup... or freeze rather.

#8 2009-08-27 02:06:21

Re: Crash on gdm startup... or freeze rather.

#9 2009-08-27 02:53:10

Re: Crash on gdm startup... or freeze rather.

#10 2009-08-27 02:55:03

Re: Crash on gdm startup... or freeze rather.

#11 2009-08-27 11:49:19

Re: Crash on gdm startup... or freeze rather.

#12 2009-08-27 15:09:22

Re: Crash on gdm startup... or freeze rather.

#13 2009-08-27 21:21:08

Re: Crash on gdm startup... or freeze rather.

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