I have been with the current install (Debian Etch + KDE 3.5) for a while and generally happy. Now.... I know I mess around with my rig constantly for one reason or another so I imagine some of my problems are very much self inflicted. When I boot into my Linux install, the first time It gets stuck, sort of half way through loading one of the USB devices. It will just sit there for ages. Then I will restart with 'Ctrl-Alt-Delet' and everything will start properly. When I want to edit a document with Kate or Kwrite, I have to do 'xhost +' each time I start a new session or no one can have access to the display device. How can I change this? It does get a bit annoying. Not a disaster but could do without... Cheers everyone....
Hahaha, as the Greeks say, γνῶθι σεαυτόν (know thyself). At least you can admit it. :chk: Still though, I suppose that's how one learns, right? This can happen with a bad/damaged USB buss or device, and also with DMA problems like a HDD with a 40-pin ribbon cable. The reason is that 40-pin will limit DMA to UDMA2, so if it's set higher there will be a lot of crosstalk and cause problems. Same thing goes for a kinked or damaged ribbon cable. Are you saying that you are starting a new X session for Kate? I don't really understand what you mean with that bit. However, the first thing I'd look into would be the permissions and ownership of your video drivers. Make sure you and your other users are in the video group.
Thanks AT, 1. Right.... the 'xhost +' palarva: This is what I type: kwrite /etc/X11/xorg.conf That's what I get: Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server Xlib: No protocol specified kwrite: cannot connect to X server :0.0 I have checked the groups and both me and root are members of the Video group. However, if I try the same as me KWrite opens fine......????? So in order to be able to edit files like fstab or sources.list etc, I need to, as me type 'xhost +'. Then I get the confirmation: "access control disabled, clients can connect from any host". After that root can open documents (in KWrite that is). I have not tried any other GUI package in that way... 2. Hanging issues (steady....) - I suppose that I will need to check a number of things. I was hoping to get some round IDE cables, so that should take care of faulty cables. I will also check the settings for my linus drive to see what it is set for (DMA). 3. As I said in one post, I get itchy fingers very quickly so I tend to try loads of stuff and so far I have been quite lucky not to break the system but from time to time some cracks are showing.... And, yes, I have no problem admitting when I am wrong.
Ahh yes, running X apps as a super-user is a security faux pas. As root, it's best just to run a non-graphical text editor like nano, joe or vim. You can check the DMA settings of IDE drives with Code: /sbin/hdparm -i /dev/hd* ...you shouldn't need root for that. No problem, tweak away. As long as you're not relying on that system for anything too important, that's the best way to learn. Sometimes these are hard lessons, but you'll definitely acquire a sense for what is safe to tweak and what should be left alone.
Cheers, point taken! W Two things - I do need to be root to do this, so maybe there is a problem there (?) All my drives show highest DMA settings (4 or 5). So not sure... this morning when I restarted, it stopped three times. Once when loading a USB device, then twice waiting for root file system. Fourth time lucky, it went in no problem. Maybe I should calm my fingers 'cause I do not always do just one thing at a time so tracing steps back becomes a problem. However, the good thing is that like you said I do not rely on the system that much so if it breaks.... I just re-install. But so far, fingers crossed, the system is bearing my beatings....
Likely you are just not a member of the 'disk' group. To give you an idea, my user account is a member of each of the following system groups: disk dialout cdrom floppy audio video plugdev burning ...and then a few custom ones for my own purposes. That's good, if your cables are good enough to correctly support that memory access mode. Otherwise you will see strange things like disk errors and temporary freezups. Well, that's good! But if you're going to harm your system you should at least be able to learn from the experience, IMHO. If you do enough at once that you're not sure which caused the issue, it's probably best that you do only one experimental thing at a time.
