[comp.unix.i386] X11 problem with Esix

heiser@tdw201.ed.ray.com (08/21/90)

This is a strange one ...

Over the weekend, I installed Esix, including the X11 options, and VP/ix
on my 386 machine.  Everything (or almost everything :-) was fine, and
things seemed to be just great.  

Last night, in a (successful) attempt to make the second serial port
work as tty01, I modified the sdevice.d/asy file to turn on the second
port (I changed the N to a Y).  Then I used /etc/conf/bin/idbuild to
rebuild the kernel, and rebooted.

As far as I recall, this is the only change I have made since the weekend.
Anyway, after making this change, the second serial port worked fine, so
I was able to connect a terminal (pc running procomm) to tty01, and use a modem
on tty00.  When I tried to start xinit on the console, though, the screen
blanked, and came up with a message something to the effect of "interrupted
system call, error 4, cannot contact x11 server" ...  

It sort of looks like rebuilding the kernel lost something that x11 needed.
Not having any manuals that have any pertinent info, I'm not sure what could
have happened.  I thought maybe re-installing X would solve the problem, but
I haven't tried it yet.  I plan on doing a total re-install soon anywya
to re-partition the disk (I don't think having 50mb of free space in the root
partition is really necessary :-) ... I'd rather have that space in /usr or
elsewhere. (besides I want to free up the 20mb dos partition I had reserved.)

I'm not so concerned about HOW to fix the X problem, since I'll be re-installing
anyway.  What I AM concerned about is WHY the problem occurred.  I hate to
think that rebuilding the kernel whenever I need to change something is going
to cause previously-installed products to get corrupted.

Has anyone seen anything like this with Esix before?

Thanks in advance for your comments, ideas, etc.

Bill


-- 
Bill Heiser
	Work:   heiser@tdw201.ed.ray.com
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heiser@tdw201.ed.ray.com (08/22/90)

Thanks to yergeau@EE-CF.Stanford.EDU (Daniel W. Yergeau) for 
explaining that he, too, had the problem with X not starting up
after enabling a serial port.  The "fix" is apparently to re-run
xconfig.  We still don't know why this happened, but at least it's
not too big a deal to fix it.

-- 
Bill Heiser
	Work:   heiser@tdw201.ed.ray.com
		{decuac,necntc,uunet}!rayssd!tdw201!heiser
	Home:   Bill.Heiser@f240.n322.z1.fidonet.org (Fidonet 1:322/240)
		The Think_Tank BBS (508)655-3848  1200/2400/9600-HST
	Other:  75106.2332@compuserve.com
	Other:	heiser@world.std.com     (Public Access Unix)