Re: Linux workstation

["Adam Williams" <awilliam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> >Here is the error:
> >According to /Var/Run/gdm.pid, gdm was already running (496) but seems to
> >have been murdered mysteriously.
> >then it repeats changing the 496 by increments of 7 ie-505, 512, 519..
> >
> >It does this for a while then it says" Init: id "x" respawning to fast:
> >disabled for 5 minutes."
> >
> >I have no idea what is going on here, other than I think that it crashed.
> No, get logged on, then delete that file (/Var/Run/gdm.pid). The problem
should
> vanish with the file.

Often when a "service" gets started (say gdm, samba, httpd, etc...) it writes
it's pid to a file in /var/run/ so that other programs can find out the pid if
they want to kill it, or so the service itself doesn't get started twice.
 Normally a pid file gets deleted when the service is stopped,  but if it stop
abnormally (say you yanked out the power cord),  the file would be left behind
and next time the service was started it would see the pid file and either just
complain or simply refuse to start.