Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!purdue!decwrl!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!mcvax!hafro!krafla!raunvis!kjartan
From: kjartan@raunvis.UUCP (Kjartan Pierre Emilsson Jardedlisfraedi)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: failed to bring up xterm.
Summary: file ownership ??
Keywords: xterm
Message-ID: <227@raunvis.UUCP>
Date: 21 Jun 88 11:43:24 GMT
References: <23222@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA>
Organization: Science Inst. Univ. of Iceland
Lines: 35





awang@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA (Alice Wang), writes:

 >I've been having problem to run xterm lately which used to work properly.
 >The error message I got is "xterm: Not enough available pty's".  
 >Does anyone out there who might know what went wrong ?

  I've run into this problem to, and the reason (?) was that somehow
all the pty files in /dev inherited the ID ( and ownership ) of the 
last user who opened them.  That is, if the previous user had opened
for example 10 windows, there were 10 pty files which had  his ID,
and which I therefore couldn't open.  I fixed it then by opening lots
of old xterms ( I was trying to run the new one ), which changed all
the pty's ownership to my ID.  Either this is a bug in the new xterm
or it must be initially set up by super-user ( I was running xterm 
from my home bin directory ).  Strangely enough this hasn't happened
again, so I haven't investigated this more closely, but this might be it.

			       -Kjartan-

P.S: Thanks to everybody for the answers regarding color table issues.  They shed
     some light on the darker corners of the Xlib manual I have ( the
     very first and most primitive that exists I believe).


...........................................................................    

    "If you don't like what your left hemisphere thinks, shoot if off."

			Kjartan Pierre Emilsson, Iceland.

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