In message <E0xAIUk-0004FM-00@taurus.cus.cam.ac.uk>
Patrick Welche <prlw1@cam.ac.uk> wrote:

>Paul Whiting wrote:
>> 
>> A small but annoying problem is that I can't delete things that I
>> mistype. Often the 'Delete' key does not work, displaying '^?'. 
>> Typing 'stty erase ^h' does not help at these times. The problem is
>> however intermittent - and seems not to affect me so much if I log 
>> on as 'root'.
>
> Instead of ^h, try actually pressing the delete key. (As from your
> description ^? rather than ^h would be more suitable). so
> stty erase <delete key>

I tried that originally, and it failed. There is _no_way_ to delete
things when I am not 'root' as far as I can see.

>> Which I did. Typing /usr/.../startx causes the machine to complain 
>> that it can't find xinit. I know that it exists though as I can see
>> it with 'ls /usr/X11R6.1/bin'.
>
> Is /usr/X11R6.1/bin in your path? Try
> echo $PATH
> If it isn't, try (I'm assuming sh shell)
> PATH=$PATH:/usr/X11R6.1/bin
>
> The reason for this is that startx is a script. The last thing it 
> does is to call xinit, but doesn't call it by a full path. An 
> alternative would be to edit startx and change the last line to
>
> /usr/X11R6.1/xinit $clientargs -- /usr/X11R6.1/bin/X $serverargs

I tried this at your suggestion. Following on from this, I typed

/usr/X11R6.1/bin/startx

which produced a very long error along the lines of

'use -- option, or make sure /usr/X11R6.1/bin is in path and 'X' is
a program or link to a valid server for your display'

What do I do now?