Bug 3123

Summary:	X and xdm won't start if /root is full
Product:	[Retired] Red Hat Linux	Reporter:	whampton
Component:	XFree86	Assignee:	David Lawrence <dkl>
Status:	CLOSED DEFERRED	QA Contact:
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	medium
Version:	6.0
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	i386
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	1999-05-29 14:08:01 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description whampton 1999-05-28 14:48:26 UTC

If /root is full, xdm tries to spawn the X server
several times for a minute or so, then dies dumping you
into the login prompt.  There is no message that
the /root partition is full.  XFS won't start as well.
In this failure mode, for newbies, there SHOULD be a
message or indication of the problem, and it should not
take a minute or so while the X server blinks and tries
to startup.  I have duplicated this on both of my Toshiba
Tecra 8000 laptops (neomagic driver).

Comment 1 Jeff Johnson 1999-05-29 14:08:59 UTC

This is a linux (or even a unix) problem rather than an XFree86
problem. A fix to avoid the problem in the future is to partition your
disk so that root almost never runs out of space -- this usually
means putting /tmp, /var, and /usr on other partitions.

Comment 2 werner.brockhoven 1999-10-06 09:47:59 UTC

Yeah still ... I've had the problem.  And only after 2 reinstalls I
noticed that the root was full.  I agree that their should be some
sort of messages about this.