Maybe this posting explains what happened to me today.
Niclas Hedhman wrote:
> Similar things happen on my system rather often... Following sequence is often
> causing a problem, but not always;
>
> 1. Ctrl-Alt-F2, and the login shows up.
> 2. Login as a user
> 3. Start lynx and download a page.
> 4. Alt-F7 and KDE is back.
>
At this point I loged in as root.
Then I attempter to startx.
I then received the following error message:
Fatial Error: Server is already active as display 0
Thanks
Frank
>
> At this point,a new Ctrl-Alt-F2 will bring me back to the TTY. The mouse moves
> across the screen but all applications are 'dead'.
> Entering any key will prevent me from CTrl-Alt-F2 again. Ctrl-Shift-Backspace (or
> whatever the combination is) stops X and X restarts.
> While the X is hanged, lynx will continue its download, and I guess that all the
> apps is actually running, but there is a deadlock somewhere in X or KDE.
>
> Niclas
>
> Ray Olszewski wrote:
>
> > Mike, you're assuming too much. Not every Linux distribution defaults to
> > having a VT on console 2. I've used some that will show a blank screen there.
> >
> > That said ... Michael, how do you know you were "locked out"? SOME key
> > combination should have gotten you back to the VT you were on (if you were
> > in X, it too runs on a VT). Did you try ALT-F1 through ALT-F9, all to no
> > avail? (The CRTL-ALT-F* combinations are needed only in an X screen.) If you
> > did all of this, still with no success, you have a more serious problem than
> > what Mike and I have assumed, and you might want to describe your system
> > (hardware and software) in a bit more detail so someone might make suggestions.
> >
> > To better understand what's going on, look in /etc/inittab and find out what
> > runlevel your system defaults to (look for the line with the work
> > "initdefault"). Then look for lines that have that number in the second
> > field (fields are separated by colons in this file) to see what processes
> > run at the default runlevel. Some will be lines like this:
> >
> > 2:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty2
> >
> > The number in the "tty" entry at the end tells you which VT is running the
> > process. "getty" (or a variant like "agetty" or "mgetty") tells you that the
> > VT runs a login process; other things can run on VTs, but unless you have a
> > truly unusual setup, you're not likely to encounter them ...
> >
> > ... with one exception: xdm. This is the process that provides login
> > capabilities directly into X.
> >
> > Oh, to answer your actual question ... NO. Nobody -- beginner or not --
> > should enter a command without knowing what it does ... especially someone
> > working as root (even "rm -rf /*" won't wreck a system unless run by root).
> >
> > At 11:50 AM 1/25/00 -0500, Michael H. Warfield wrote:
> > >On Tue, Jan 25, 2000 at 10:38:13AM -0600, Mike Miller wrote:
> > >> I did something stupid last night, I pressed ctrl-alt-F2 and totally
> > >> locked up the machine. Actually it may not have been locked up,
> > >> but I was locked out. The monitor went blank and the keyboard
> > >> dead. Even the caps lock led was dead ! The only way I could
> > >> recover was a hardware reset. Why did I do it? I mis-remembered
> > >> something I'd read about switching from X to console.
> > >
> > > That should have put you on Console 2. You should have had
> > >a login prompt there. Don't know why you would have just died. From
> > >there <Alt><Fn> or <Cntrl><Alt><Fn> should take you to the various
> > >virtual consoles with F1 being the first console. One of them (typically
> > >F7 if you have 6 virtual consoles set up) should dump you back in X.
> > >
> > >> The question? Is there a list of commands that should never be
> > >> issued by uninformed newbies?
> > >
> > > Things like...
> > >
> > > rm -rf /
> >
> > ------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"---
> > Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo
> > Palo Alto, CA [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------
