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Date:      Sun, 18 Apr 2004 14:16:02 -0700
From:      Mike <addymin@pacbell.net>
To:        Malcolm Kay <malcolm.kay@internode.on.net>
Cc:        freebsd-questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: KDE crashes for 1 user but not the others?
Message-ID:  <4082F012.50103@pacbell.net>
In-Reply-To: <200404180932.44164.malcolm.kay@internode.on.net>
References:  <40803431.2070504@pacbell.net> <200404180932.44164.malcolm.kay@internode.on.net>

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Malcolm Kay wrote:

> On Saturday 17 April 2004 04:59, Mike wrote:
> 
>>Greeting:
>>
>>The system: FreeBSD 4.9-stable
>>
>>I have KDE 3.14 installed and all was working well for a number of
>>weeks. Root and one other regular user account had been able to start
>>and use KDE and Gnome.  And both GUI environments operated normally.
>>
>>A few days ago KDE under root account wouldn't start (startx).  Howevere
>>KDE started under a regular user account works perfectly (and continues
>>to do so).
>>
>>Furthermore, Gnome (2.4) under root starts (half-way?) up to the point
>>of the banner and then hangs.
>>
> 
> 
> The root account resides on the root partition which is deliberately
> kept lean and mean to improve the chances of recovery if anything breaks 
> in the system. This means that the root account can easily run out of disk 
> space when running greedy X software.
> 
> Monsters such as KDE and Gnome are not suitable for running 
> from the root account. In my opinion it is not a good idea to run any
> X-windows manager from the root account i.e. no startx or xdm logins
> from root.

Malcom:

Hmmmm...  Good point.  I think that losing KDE for the root account is 
not such a bad idea, although this was done by accident :\

> 
> If you want the convenience of X from a privileged account then run
> X and KDE or Gnome under a normal user with membership of the 'wheel' 
> group and then 'su' to root.
> 
Ok. Currently I'm using a non-privileged account and "su'ing" when I 
need to perform admin work.

> (A possible alternative is to setup a second privileged account with
> a home directory under /home and work from this. You probably already 
> have such an account under the login name 'toor' but you will need to
> move its home directory and give it a password.)

Thanks for the tip!  But I'll probably just let the root account go 
without KDE.  If root REALLY needs a GUI (which it doesn't) then I could 
fire up fvwm or enlightenment.

Thanks for the pointer Malcolm.

Michael


> 
> Malcolm 
> 
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