[vox-tech] X is blown out

[Rick Moen]

[Cc'ing research@afes.com as requested.  Any followups should do
likewise.]

Quoting rscofield (rscofield@afes.com):

> This morning as I was booting into Linux the electricity in my house went out, 
> and as a result my X has been blown out.
> 
> When I boot into Mandrake I get an error message that goes by so fast that I 
> can't read it.  It starts out like this:  "Can't remove..." and then this is 
> followed by a filename.
> 
> After I log on and type "startx" I get these error messages:
> 
> "xauth:  error in locking authority file /home/bob/.Xauthority
> 
> Fatal server error:
> 
> Can't read lock file /tmp/.X0-lock"

The obvious question, of course, is what's going on with the /tmp
directory.  (Is it, by some chance, a separate /tmp filesystem?  If so,
is it getting successfully mounted at boot time?  Check /etc/fstab and 
the output of /bin/mount, if you're unsure.)  

What are the ownership and permissions on the /tmp directory?  Is there 
anything in it?  Maybe /tmp/.X0-lock, for example?  If so, what are the 
ownership and permissions on that?

Does the symptom you describe happen for the root user, as well as for
your non-root username? 

About the boot-time error message that scrolls off-screen too quickly to
read:  You need to examine the console log:  Try "dmesg | less".

-- 
Cheers,                
Rick Moen                                           FORTH heart if honk then.
rick@linuxmafia.com