server crash on 4.0.1

[Brian J. Tarricone]

Anthony Ewell wrote:

>     I logged into one of my Red Hat 9.0 servers and proceeded to
> start XFce 4.0.1.  The server stayed in text mode and displayed a lot
> of strange characters on the screen.  The server was totally hosed.
> So I upgraded to 4.0.3-1. 

for starters, i find it hard to believe that a desktop environment 
itself could bring down an entire machine.  the fact that you didn't 
even leave text mode, however, seems to indicate to me that it's a 
problem with the X server, and has nothing to do with xfce.

btw, by "totally hosed" do you mean "i had to reboot it," or "i had to 
rebuild the entire system"?  i usually tend to use "hosed" to mean the 
latter, so that's why i'm a bit confused...  at any rate, if an X client 
causes the X server to crash, it's by definition a bug in the X server, 
as the X client-server model is designed in such a way that clients 
can't crash (reasonably bug-free and well-designed) X servers.  i would 
blame the video driver; it's a common culprit.

    -brian