Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 87484
No error message when X11 startup fails
Last modified: 2005-10-31 17:00:50 EST
Description of problem: No error message is given, when the system in general (as oppsed to the X server config) has some kind of problem that prevents the X server from starting. This is for instance the case when the root file system is full or there is something wrong with the network setup. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): 2.2.3.1-22 How reproducible: Everytime. Steps to Reproduce: 1. Fill up the system disk 2. Reboot Actual results: The system pretends that it is configured for text-mode only, and that everything is otherwise fine. Expected results: Error message
I'm not sure I understand exactly what you mean; does the system get to the part where it tries to start the X server? does gdm start? at what point are you saying the failure occurs?
I'm not in my office now so I can't check any details, but essentially what happens is that after a reboot, it looks like the system has (successfully) entered runlevel 3, but closer inspection reveals that it's actually in runlevel 5, but X just hasn't started - and I can't find anything wrong with inittab or similar. Happens on Red Hat 9, too; we have an old laptop that ended up in this state after upgrade to version 9 (and I never bothered to fix it as it's not really being used anymore.) It looks like you may get this kind of behaviour when X fails due to a problem with the general system setup, as opposed to an XFree86 config error. One example of such a problem is an incorrect network configuration; maybe you'll see what I mean if you remove the localhost entry from /etc/hosts.
GDM reports when X fails to start now.