Login Problem

[Rick Stevens]

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)
> 
> 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
----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-         "OK, so you're a Ph.D. Just don't TOUCH anything!"         -
----------------------------------------------------------------------