I had this problem too. what it is is that you do not have an xinitrc file
in your home directory. it must be named


.xinitrc

and contain some x apps to use eg,

xterm&
xclock&
xconsole&
twm

note that the last item in this file must not be backgrounded with &
so that when that thing quits, the x session drops. I have used xmessage, a
thing that shows a dialog with an ok button. In the dialog i put the
message 'click to log out', and my xinitrc last few items looks like this:

twm&
xmessage {parameters here}

the result is that all items are backgrounded except xmessage; the result
is that when xmessage is terminated (i click on the ok button) - then the
whole xsession collapses and i effectively log out of x.

what's happening in your case is that the x thing runs, finds no xinitrc,
sees therefore that it has nothing to do, then exits.

another way to do this is put xdm into the /etc/rc files. that way,
whenever your machine boots it will boot into the xdm login screen and
you'll log in directly into an x session. but in order for this to work you
need to have a nunmber of files in /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/xdm specifying
settings for the xdm program. and you still need to have an xinitrc file
(sometimes it wants one called xsession - but it's the same file). If you
need more help on this i can maybe email you a file someone sent me with
full instructions.


_________________________________________________________________________
John Ostrowick
Computer Science Department, University of the Witwatersrand
1 Jan Smuts Ave, Johannesburg, South Africa. 1st Floor, Senate House 1012
Phone: +27 (011) 716-3783
jon@cs.wits.ac.za or jon@macenroe.cs.wits.ac.za or jon@is.co.za
My web page is on my server's: http://macenroe.cs.wits.ac.za/
My ftp site: ftp://macenroe.cs.wits.ac.za/macenroe/pub/
My listserv: subscr@macenroe.cs.wits.ac.za (any message with a body)