[vox-tech] Init: Id "S" respawing too fast

[Jeff Newmiller]

On 16 Jun 2003, Richard S. Crawford wrote:

> I get this error whenever I launch my new Debian laptop (a Gateway Solo
> 2500, about 5 years old, with 96 MB RAM, 4 GB hard drive, 300 MHz Intel
> Celeron chip).  Specifically, I get a series of error messages about the
> usage of getty before I get the error message:
>
> Init: Id "S" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
>
> And, of course, after 5 minutes, I get the same display again, which is
> really annoying when I'm in the middle of doing something on this
> computer.  I only see the messages when I'm in console mode, not when
> I'm running X.  But since X looks so god-awful on this computer, I would
> much rather run it in console mode.
>
> What could be causing this error?

This behavior is because init is trying to start something that is failing
immediately.  One cause of such errors can be a missing serial port,
because attempting to start a getty on a nonfunctional tty device will
fail immediately.

You need to fix your inittab file. ("man inittab")

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Newmiller                        The     .....       .....  Go Live...
DCN:<jdnewmil@dcn.davis.ca.us>        Basics: ##.#.       ##.#.  Live Go...
Work:<JeffN@endecon.com>              Live:   OO#.. Dead: OO#..  Playing
Research Engineer (Solar/Batteries            O.O#.       #.O#.  with
/Software/Embedded Controllers)               .OO#.       .OO#.  rocks...2k
---------------------------------------------------------------------------