Now with the workaround of knowing to run startx -- :0 to get X to start, I thought I'd have a poke about to see what exactly makes it crash. I came up with several interesting problems.
In my .xinitrc I *don't* have an explicit path for xterm. However, I see xterm has moved from /usr/X11R6/bin to /usr/bin! Did many other X applications also move into there? I only noticed that xterm had moved because when I start X with -multiwindow (or with -clipboard), it complains like this and exits: $ PATH="$PATH:/usr/X11R6/bin" startx -multiwindow -- :0 XCOMM: not found cat: /cygdrive/d/home/luke/.Xauthority: No such file or directory xinit: No such file or directory (errno 2): no program named "/usr/X11R6/bin/xterm" in PATH Specify a program on the command line or make sure that /usr/X11R6/bin is in your path. waiting for X server to shut down $ head /tmp/XWin.log Welcome to the XWin X Server Vendor: The Cygwin/X Project Release: 4.3.0.65 Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] XWin was started with the following command line: /usr/X11R6/bin/X :0 ddxProcessArgument - Initializing default screens (What is XCOMM, BTW?) However if I start it the same way, but without the -multiwindow, X starts successfully. (PATH="$PATH:/usr/X11R6/bin" startx -- :0) If I try to start it with a plain startx (no "--"), I get the usual illegal option messages (related to having some kind of "traditional" Chinese or Japanese font installed, I vaguely think), and then it dies because it thinks a window manager is already running: $ PATH="$PATH:/usr/X11R6/bin" startx cat: /cygdrive/d/home/luke/.Xauthority: No such file or directory : illegal option -- t : illegal option -- r : illegal option -- a : illegal option -- d : illegal option -- i : illegal option -- t : illegal option -- i : illegal option -- o : illegal option -- n : illegal option -- a DISPLAY is :0 wmaker fatal error: it seems that there is already a window manager running xinit: Bad file descriptor (errno 9): can't send HUP to process group 3904 waiting for X server to shut down $ head /tmp/XWin.log Welcome to the XWin X Server Vendor: The Cygwin/X Project Release: 4.3.0.65 Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] XWin was started with the following command line: X :0 -multiwindow -clipboard ddxProcessArgument - Initializing default screens Now, I gather that's because another piece of behaviour changed: From: "Danny Staple" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: window manager running already Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2004 12:00:57 -0000 (GMT) To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Okay - I was having this problem as well, after updating. What you should do is check if you have an .xinitrc in your home directory. As shipped, older versions of cygwin would runa full screen x, with no window manager, and as such - you would have to run one yourself like wmaker. This would then be added to your .xinitrc file. The new X is configured with a window manager system which embeds windows onto the MS Windows desktop - quite neat when it works - but it means that by default, you do not need another window manager. So you probably need to remove the window manager lines from your .xinitrc, and possibly even remove that altogether if it has nothing else in it. So if I remove the "exec wmaker" from .xinitrc, X starts and stops instantly. So I add an "xterm" at the end of .xinitrc (since X doesn't realise the wmaker would have started lots of windows from its saved workspace state if it had been given a few seconds to run). Also, I see that if I use the MS Windows desktop with -multiwindow, and right-click on the X taskbar icon to turn off the hiding of the root window, I get the gray stipple pattern, the window decorations are stripped off, and the cursor turns into the black X and freezes in position, so I can't see the cursor until I move it out of the X window (e.g. down over the Windows taskbar). Nor can I right-click in the X desktop background area and call up any menu. It looks like no window manager is running at all. I wonder how I can run multiwindow with wmaker as my window manager? Maybe keep the "exec wmaker" and set display to :1 ... No, "startx -multiwindow -- :1" triggers the "no program named "/usr/X11R6/bin/xterm" in PATH" crash. So I don't quite see how to achieve that. I tried xinit -multiwindow but that started up a full desktop. I tried just running "X -multiwindow" from the command line. That appeared to just put the X icon in the taskbar. I turned off "Hide root window" then I got just a plain grey stipple. If I tried to exit from that, a window popped up saying "There are 0 clients connected. Do you want to exit? (Exit) (Cancel)" Clicking on Exit did nothing. I had to Hide the root window - that made X exit (with an error message): $ X -multiwindow winMutliWindowWMIOErrorHandler! I'm getting the strong feeling that there's been a lot of changes, and I am out of touch with the ways you can start and run X. Can a kind soul point me at some information? Related to: -multiwindow -clipboard what the startx defaults are can they be modified or overridden by a config file using Windows as the WM Regards luke