A few questions

[Number1Gnubie]

I have used Linux for about 2-3 months now, and am at this point completly addicted. Here are some of my questions that I have not already figured out, I should also mention I started this journey with Mandrake 7.1 and now have 7.2..... Without going into a lot of detail, at times my compile of certain programs.. tarballs, would freeze the computer. I found from a Linux friend that pressing Ctrl-Alt-F4 I go to a sort of virtual terminal session, and by pressing the magic Windows key on my keyboard could skip through a series of these vitual sessions.. What is this called and how would you skip screens without that Windows key? And why would my compiling be more stable? Not to mention it took a week to realize that I needed to run Unreal IRCD from there, running the ircd in an X terminal gave an unrelated error.
Thanks for your time... I will undoubtbly have more questions for later ;)
---Chuck

[tamur]

These are virtual terminals. You can access them with ctl+alt+f(1-6), f7 is your X-session. If you are running X, then f1 will show you error messages.



------------------
"...he only stands to reason."

The Callahan Chronicles

[conman]

If your X session crashes/hangs it doesn't mean that linux has crashed - which is what sounds like is happening to you. Fortunately there is an easy way to kill the X-session and Mandrake will simply restart it (taking you to the login screen).
So; If X-crashes use key sequence:
CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE
and this will kill your X-session and restart it.

Cheers,
http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif

[Number1Gnubie]

thanks dudes, I also have another question which I forgot to mention, and I think it may be related... Since I upgraded to Mandrake 7.2, the computer from time to time, not often just log out to the X login screen. There is no warning, or errors, KDE2 or gnome will just suddently start closing all windows I am in and return me to the login screen. It has happened in both KDE2 and gnome and I am guessing any other window manager if I spent more time using them... Its rather annoying when I am in the middle of an important task or running it as a server. It hapens at odd frequencies. There is no ceratin program running or operation, though I think its always in active use at the time. I mat leave it up for a week straight and nothing and I may turn it on and mins later boom. Anyone know a way I can trace the problem and hopefully fix it?
Thanks, Chuck