I've been trying to install LinuxPPC 1999 r3 on my Powerbook G3 Lombard
333Mhz for about 3 days. I'm fed up. I first tried with the X Windows
installer. It worked good except for the network parts and the USB mouse

I have beside. I decided then to erase everything and start the RedHat
installer. Everything was OK until I had to configure the video
settings. Impossible to find a good one. I have 8 Mo of Vram and RedHat
tell me I only have 3  ???? Anyway, I finished the insatallation.
Ithought I could change the settings later.

Now each time I boot in Linux, I have problems when the "login:" line
appears. The system tells me the following line about 20 times (which
makes me very angy each time).

"according to /var/run/gdm.pid, gdm was already running (549) but seems
to have been {*filter*}ed mysteriousely"

Then after the 20 lines (with a different number each time), he tells me

that he stops for 5 min.
I press "return" and I can login (as root).

Here is my question: how can I stop this? What is gdm.pid ? I never had
this problem with the X Window installer. It seems to me that it's a
video problem (ATI chip not recognized). I tried a lot of differnet
configurations but those about 20 lines appear each time I boot. and if
I stay in the shell, they come back after 5-10 minutes.

Thanks in advance for help,

Pascal

Katia

: hello,

: I've been trying to install LinuxPPC 1999 r3 on my Powerbook G3 Lombard
: 333Mhz for about 3 days. I'm fed up. I first tried with the X Windows
: installer. It worked good except for the network parts and the USB mouse

: I have beside. I decided then to erase everything and start the RedHat
: installer. Everything was OK until I had to configure the video
: settings. Impossible to find a good one. I have 8 Mo of Vram and RedHat
: tell me I only have 3  ???? Anyway, I finished the insatallation.
: Ithought I could change the settings later.

: Now each time I boot in Linux, I have problems when the "login:" line
: appears. The system tells me the following line about 20 times (which
: makes me very angy each time).

: "according to /var/run/gdm.pid, gdm was already running (549) but seems
: to have been {*filter*}ed mysteriousely"

: Then after the 20 lines (with a different number each time), he tells me

: that he stops for 5 min.
: I press "return" and I can login (as root).

: Here is my question: how can I stop this? What is gdm.pid ? I never had
: this problem with the X Window installer. It seems to me that it's a
: video problem (ATI chip not recognized). I tried a lot of differnet
: configurations but those about 20 lines appear each time I boot. and if
: I stay in the shell, they come back after 5-10 minutes.

: Thanks in advance for help,

: Pascal

Some explanations:

/var/run/gdm.pid is a lock file that holds the process ID of the
currently running gdm mouse interface daemon (the purpose is not to have
two of these deamons runing at the same time). gdm is run by init on
system startup and init respawns it each time gdm quits. Apparently gdm
crashes immediately after being started, presumably because it can't
open the mouse device. gdm doesn't even clean away its pid file, so the
next copy finds the file, looks for a process with the ID listed in the
file, finds none and prints that message.

What does all this mean?
If gdm can't open the mouse device (my best guess; look at
/var/log/messages to find gdm error messages), first look at
/etc/sysconfig/mouse to determine what your system thinks the mouse type
to use should be.

My /etc/sysconfig/mouse did look like this:

MOUSETYPE="imps2"
XMOUSETYPE="IMPS/2"
FULLNAME="USB mouse"
XEMU3=no

for using the USB mouse. It should probably have 'busmouse' instead of
imps2 for the trackpad...

Next, do ls -l /dev/mouse. In the example above, /dev/mouse should be a
symbolic link to /dev/usbmouse (otherwise to /dev/adbmouse). Make sure
the devices /dev/adbmouse and /dev/usbmouse actually do exist.

Last, run Xconfigurator to update the mouse setup for X according to the
information in /etc/sysconfig/mouse.

        Michael