11.3: Where to adjust X11 Timeout Parameter, affecting boot

Computer boots up fine, but drops to commandline as it tries to go to the desktop. Just logging in and issuing “startx” brings up the desktop and all is well.

The Xorg logfile gives no fatals or clues (at least to me), but the “warn” file in /var/log gives the following at the end:
Mar 13 13:25:43 xxxxxxxx kdm[2328]: X server startup timeout, terminating
Mar 13 13:25:43 xxxxxxxx kdm[2328]: X server for display :0 can’t be started, session disabled

Yesterday was fine, and never had it before; no harware changes (still same ATI 4770 and ATI 11.2 driver), nor BIOS changes/updates, for ages. First boot today this started. Does it continuously.

Any insight into how I might slightly increase X’s timeout parameter a bit, if this is the problem?

I found a suggestion to edit a text file here with this line to resolve the problem set in /usr/share/kde4/config/kdm/kdmrc.

To edit this file use a menu Run Command or Alt-F2


kdesu kwrite /usr/share/kde4/config/kdm/kdmrc

And add the ServerTimeout=500 line:

   [X-*-Core]
    ServerTimeout=500

Reboot and see if this helps in any way.

Thank You,

Good day!

Got the same exact message in logs with 11.4, it began few days ago after some online updates. Every time I have to login as root into console, do init 3 than init 5 and KDM starts normally.

Tried timeouts of 200, 500 and 800, no success.

CPU is AMD 64 dual core.

Is there any way to make KDM start absolutely last, after all other services started? I know it will slow down boot time up to 5 seconds, but I do not care about boot time any way. I’ve seen symlinks in /etc/init.d/rc5.d, but XDM is already K01. Will it help to make it 00 or 10?

Can we see your repos? Please post output of ‘zypper lr -d’. This happened to me some years ago when I had a mix of KDE packages from different repos.

Please take a look:

# | Alias | Name | Enabled | Refresh | Priority | Type | URI | Service
---+----------------------------------+----------------------------------+---------+---------+----------+--------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------
 1 | Contrib | Contrib | Yes | Yes | 85 | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/openSUSE:/11.4:/Contrib/standard/ | 
 2 | Updates-for-openSUSE-11.4-11.4-0 | Updates for openSUSE 11.4 11.4-0 | Yes | Yes | 90 | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/update/11.4/ | 
 8 | openSUSE-11.4-11.4-0 | openSUSE-11.4-11.4-0 | No | No | 99 | yast2 | cd:///?devices=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-Optiarc_DVD_RW_AD-7203S,/dev/sr0,/dev/sr1 | 
 9 | packman | packman | Yes | Yes | 80 | rpm-md | http://packman.inode.at/suse/openSUSE_11.4/ | 
10 | repo-debug | openSUSE-11.4-Debug | No | Yes | 99 | NONE | http://download.opensuse.org/debug/distribution/11.4/repo/oss/ | 
11 | repo-debug-update | openSUSE-11.4-Update-Debug | No | Yes | 99 | NONE | http://download.opensuse.org/debug/update/11.4/ | 
12 | repo-non-oss | openSUSE-11.4-Non-Oss | Yes | Yes | 99 | yast2 | http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.4/repo/non-oss/ | 
13 | repo-oss | openSUSE-11.4-Oss | Yes | Yes | 99 | yast2 | http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.4/repo/oss/ | 
14 | repo-source | openSUSE-11.4-Source | No | Yes | 99 | NONE | http://download.opensuse.org/source/distribution/11.4/repo/oss/ | 
15 | videolan | videolan | Yes | Yes | 85 | rpm-md | http://download.videolan.org/pub/vlc/SuSE/11.4/ | 

the only package from Contrib is Chromium with it’s deps.

PS: problem is reproducible on my home system only, as in my signature.

Also listing my /etc/init.d/rc5.d/ folder, maybe it will help to determine problem. I have SSHD and NTP enabled, plus VirtualBox from it’s official site, maybe it causes troubles with timeouts…

user@desktop:~> l /etc/init.d/rc5.d/
total 8
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 Apr  4 07:48 ./
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Mar 30 07:48 ../
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   10 Mar  2 13:44 K01cpufreq -> ../cpufreq*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    7 Mar  2 13:44 K01cron -> ../cron*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    7 Mar  2 13:44 K01cups -> ../cups*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    7 Mar  2 13:44 K01dbus -> ../dbus*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   15 Mar  2 13:44 K01irq_balancer -> ../irq_balancer*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    9 Mar 12 13:53 K01mcelog -> ../mcelog*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    7 Mar  2 13:43 K01nscd -> ../nscd*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    9 Mar  2 13:44 K01random -> ../random*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    9 Mar  2 13:45 K01splash -> ../splash*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   15 Mar  2 13:45 K01splash_early -> ../splash_early*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    7 Mar 12 14:56 K01sshd -> ../sshd*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    6 Mar  2 13:44 K01xdm -> ../xdm*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    8 Mar  2 13:44 K02acpid -> ../acpid*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   12 Mar 12 14:07 K02alsasound -> ../alsasound*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    8 Mar  2 13:45 K02fbset -> ../fbset*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    6 Mar  2 13:44 K02kbd -> ../kbd*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   10 Mar  2 13:44 K02postfix -> ../postfix*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   10 Mar 12 17:24 K02vboxdrv -> ../vboxdrv*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    6 Mar 12 17:23 K03ntp -> ../ntp*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   19 Mar 12 17:23 K04network-remotefs -> ../network-remotefs*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   10 Mar 12 17:23 K06rpcbind -> ../rpcbind*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    9 Mar 12 17:23 K07syslog -> ../syslog*                                                                                                                                                                
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   14 Mar 12 17:23 K08earlysyslog -> ../earlysyslog*                                                                                                                                                      
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   10 Mar 12 17:23 K08network -> ../network*                                                                                                                                                              
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    8 Mar  2 13:44 S01acpid -> ../acpid*                                                                                                                                                                  
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   10 Mar  2 13:44 S01cpufreq -> ../cpufreq*                                                                                                                                                              
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    7 Mar  2 13:44 S01dbus -> ../dbus*                                                                                                                                                                    
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   14 Mar  2 13:44 S01earlysyslog -> ../earlysyslog*                                                                                                                                                      
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    8 Mar  2 13:44 S01fbset -> ../fbset*                                                                                                                                                                  
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    9 Mar  2 13:44 S01random -> ../random*                                                                                                                                                                
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   10 Mar  2 13:45 S02network -> ../network*                                                                                                                                                              
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    9 Mar  2 13:45 S03syslog -> ../syslog*                                                                                                                                                                
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   10 Mar  2 13:45 S04rpcbind -> ../rpcbind*                                                                                                                                                              
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   15 Mar  2 13:45 S04splash_early -> ../splash_early*                                                                                                                                                    
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   10 Mar 12 17:24 S04vboxdrv -> ../vboxdrv*                                                                                                                                                              
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    6 Mar  2 13:45 S06kbd -> ../kbd*                                                                                                                                                                      
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   12 Mar 12 14:07 S07alsasound -> ../alsasound*                                                                                                                                                          
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    7 Mar  2 13:44 S07cups -> ../cups*                                                                                                                                                                    
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   15 Mar  2 13:45 S07irq_balancer -> ../irq_balancer*                                                                                                                                                    
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    9 Mar 12 13:53 S07mcelog -> ../mcelog*                                                                                                                                                                
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   19 Mar  2 13:45 S07network-remotefs -> ../network-remotefs*                                                                                                                                            
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    9 Mar  2 13:45 S07splash -> ../splash*                                                                                                                                                                
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    7 Mar 12 14:56 S07sshd -> ../sshd*                                                                                                                                                                    
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    6 Mar 12 15:00 S08ntp -> ../ntp*                                                                                                                                                                      
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    7 Mar  2 13:45 S09nscd -> ../nscd*                                                                                                                                                                    
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   10 Mar  2 13:45 S09postfix -> ../postfix*                                                                                                                                                              
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    6 Mar  2 13:45 S09xdm -> ../xdm*                                                                                                                                                                      
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    7 Mar  2 13:45 S10cron -> ../cron*

In KDM config that timeout is milliseconds, right?

Made all timeouts 1000, including OpenTimeout, and changed to ServerAttempts=3, it starts with second attempt. Still, I’d like to make KDM the very last service to start, after everything else was started…

It should be the “S” numbers that start the service and the “K” numbers for stopping (killing) it.

I see S11earlyxdm and S12xdm

On 2011-04-05 07:06, nrickert wrote:
>
> Aekold;2317540 Wrote:
>> I’ve seen symlinks in /etc/init.d/rc5.d, but XDM is already K01. Will it
>> help to make it 00 or 10?
>
> It should be the “S” numbers that start the service and the “K” numbers
> for stopping (killing) it.
>
> I see S11earlyxdm and S12xdm

Don’t try to change the numbers there. You have to edit the requires inthe
scripts instead.

You could try parallel boot no. Just a wild guess, but it is affecting some
people.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)

Thank you, disabling parallel boot worked, now KDM starts at once without problems.