I did a google search for IceTransSocketUNIXCreateListener and was led to some postings by other people who have had similar problems. For example: http://www.redhat.com/archives/valhalla-list/2002-May/msg02670.html http://www.linux.com.pl/forum/index.php?t=tree&goto=25898&rid=0&S=7df5ed5cadc267af607ef890c114a28a http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=312876 As nearly as I can tell, no one ever figured out what was wrong. I've noticed that if I wait a while before starting X, then it starts the first time I try. E.g. I'll typeset something in emacs for 15 minutes or half an hour and then execute startx. That could mean that something needs to warm up or it could mean that some resource is being used at the beginning of a session and it can't support both that resource and X for some reason. I also did a google search for SocketCreateListener and found that there are also similar complaints on OpenBSD3.3 forums. For example: http://www.bsdforums.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-10011.html I also found, in the same search, some source file Xtranssock.c at http://cvsweb.xfree86.org/cvsweb/xc/lib/xtrans/Xtranssock.c?rev=3.74 which explicitly contains what seems to be very close to some of these error messages. I'm not very talented at reading stuff like this, but I'll take a look and see if I can figure out what the program is doing when this error message occurs. There is no file Xtra* on my system, but maybe the compiled object file is in some X library. Here is one declaration that might be relevant, although it is hard to tell since it has so many #ifdef's. #ifdef TRANS_SERVER static int TRANS(SocketCreateListener) (XtransConnInfo ciptr, struct sockaddr *sockname, int socknamelen, unsigned int flags) At least it contains SocketCreateListener in it. But I don't know what the TRANS is. I didn't find it explicitly defined in the files or in the included header files, but maybe I did it wrong. Any idea what it is? -- Ignorantly, Allan Adler <ara@zurich.csail.mit.edu> * Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions and * comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near Boston.

Allan Adler <ara@nestle.csail.mit.edu> writes: > I've noticed that if I wait a while before starting X, then it starts the > first time I try. E.g. I'll typeset something in emacs for 15 minutes or > half an hour and then execute startx. That could mean that something needs > to warm up or it could mean that some resource is being used at the beginning > of a session and it can't support both that resource and X for some reason. It finally occurred to me that, if this theory has any merit, I should try to find out what my machine is doing after I log in. I just took a wild guess and assumed that it is running cron jobs and found that there are log files /var/log/cron. I don't know yet how to make sense of them, but maybe there is some way to decide which actions are most likely to be in competition with startx. Any ideas? -- Ignorantly, Allan Adler <ara@zurich.csail.mit.edu> * Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions and * comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near Boston.

["Followup-To:" header set to comp.os.linux.misc.] On 2007-10-06, Allan Adler <ara@nestle.csail.mit.edu> wrote: > Allan Adler <ara@nestle.csail.mit.edu> writes: > >> I've noticed that if I wait a while before starting X, then it starts the >> first time I try. E.g. I'll typeset something in emacs for 15 minutes or >> half an hour and then execute startx. That could mean that something needs >> to warm up or it could mean that some resource is being used at the beginning >> of a session and it can't support both that resource and X for some reason. > > It finally occurred to me that, if this theory has any merit, I should try > to find out what my machine is doing after I log in. I just took a wild > guess and assumed that it is running cron jobs and found that there are > log files /var/log/cron. I don't know yet how to make sense of them, but > maybe there is some way to decide which actions are most likely to be > in competition with startx. Any ideas? You could log into another virtual console (press alt-f2) and run top. (On most Linux systems you can use alt or ctrl-alt with F1 to F6). If you are running an old machine with very little memory (128MB or less) and no swap, a competing process might prevent X from starting.

In comp.os.linux.x Allan Adler <ara@nestle.csail.mit.edu> wrote: > > I've noticed that if I wait a while before starting X, then it starts the > first time I try. E.g. I'll typeset something in emacs for 15 minutes or > half an hour and then execute startx. That could mean that something needs > to warm up or it could mean that some resource is being used at the beginning > of a session and it can't support both that resource and X for some reason. This is a total shot in the dark, but if you're relying on automount to mount directories as required, then maybe there might be a problem if X doesn't have some required directory soon enough. You can try running 'mount' to see what's mounted before starting X with root the first time, and then running 'mount' afterwards when everything is working. If there are new directories mounted afterwards (like, say, tmpfs), then maybe you can mount them directly at bootup and avoid using automount. Rob Komar