X-Window Weirdness

[Joe]

kppp always says it dies on my system when something goes wrong (e.g. 
someone picks up a phone and starts tone dialing without bothering to 
listen first for the dial tone).

If you go to one of the internet security websites such as
https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

and let them evaluate your security, you'll see how tight your system is 
and what it does say about itself.

On my system, Mozilla was happy to divulge the following:

Accept: text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,image/png,*/*;q=0.5
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
Connection: keep-alive
Host: www.grc.com
Referer: http://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?rh1dkyd2
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040616
Content-Length: 32
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive: 300
Secure: https://www.grc.com
Nonsecure: http://www.grc.com
MediaPort: 8082

which, as you can see, does tell them I'm running Linux.  I'm sure that 
it would not be too difficult to have my system say whatever I wanted 
about itself though.  I believe even Mozilla has an option (somewhere) 
to identify itself as the browser of your choice - for prejudiced sites.

The Gibson Research (grc) is somewhat Windoze oriented, but then, 
they're the ones that need the most help.  While you're there, check out 
some of his articles, etc.  He's been a very helpful trouble maker (for 
people like Microsoft and Norton) for a long time.

Joe

Cyber Source wrote:

> Sounds like you have alot of misconfigured stuff there and maybe some 
> hardware issues as well. ctrl-alt-backspace (at least in Gnome) should 
> restart your X server, I believe it's the same for KDE, if that key 
> combination shuts your machine off, you have something REALLY wrong. 
> To many options to type about that.
>  As far as kppp, speaking as a "Gnome-Head", that is one KDE app I 
> think does a pretty nice job. When it gives the message that kppp 
> died, it will also give a code number. Do a man on kppp and look for 
> that number, it should give you a clue as to what is going on and it's 
> almost always a authentication problem with the username/password. 
> Seeing that winblows can connect ok should rule out a hardware 
> problem. Also, look in your /var/log/messages after kppp dies.
>
> S Lawton wrote:
>
>> 11/01/04 4:49:22 PM, "S. Lawton " <green_man at bluefrog.biz> wrote:
>>
>>  
>>
>>> I attempted to change my monitor, but was unsuccessful, I think.
>>> I don't know if it was that, or the fact that I forgot to unplug my 
>>> USB trackball device before that login. Anyhow, when X starts 
>>> displaying the log in screen, the cursor moves to the upper right 
>>> corner of the screen and freezes there. I tried the LiLo FailSafe 
>>> boot option, but the same thing happens, and the console window is 
>>> pushed to the lower right, so the upper left corner is in the center 
>>> of the screen. I have no idea exactly what happened, or how to fix 
>>> it, but I have a Knoppix 3.3 CD that works. Can I somehow use 
>>> Knoppix to get into the Mandrake partitions and start Mandrake's 
>>> X-Windows using the Knoppix values ? Knoppix denies me access to 
>>> Mandrake's partitions, but I can get a root console. Or could 
>>> something be done from the "boot" prompt, before X starts ? Has 
>>> anybody seen anything like this ?
>>>
>>> AIA
>>>
>>>
>>>   
>>
>>
>> UPDATE: I have 3 Linux Live Cds that the monitor and mouse work in.
>> Knoppix 3.3 [debian based] Morphix 0.4-1 [debian based]
>> SlaX 3.0.25-2 [slackware based]
>> all have very scant documentation, or nil
>> I have figured out how to access Mandrake's partitions as root from 
>> inside Morphix. Is there a file somewhere that I can copy from one of 
>> these into Mandrake, or or delete in Mandrake so I can reconfigure it ?
>> The mouse/monitor glitch is the same for Mandrake's root and normal 
>> users, and also happens if I use the "screen=1024x768" argument from 
>> the "boot" prompt, login as root, then "startx". Where is the monitor 
>> configuration stored, so I can whack it, and be forced to reconfigure 
>> it ?
>> [ASIDE 1] What does CTL+ALT+BACKSPACE do? I think I remeber reading 
>> that was supposed to kill Xwindows and put you into text console 
>> mode, but this machine dies like I pulled the plug. Is it a 
>> configurable key combination ?
>> [ASIDE 2] Can an ISP tell if you're using Windows or Linux ? If so, 
>> can they kill a daemon from thier end ? The reason I ask is that 
>> after configuring kppp and hitting "connect", the modem dials and 
>> handshakes, but at the point where, in Windows authentication would 
>> be completed and it would drop to the systray, instead I get the 
>> message the kppp daemon died unexpectedly. There are no details 
>> available. This happens every time. Yet, if reboot to Windows and 
>> connect, it's fine. What gives ??
>>
>>  
>>
>

-- 
"Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves." -- George Gordon Noel Byron (Lord Byron)