[UFO Chicago] Debian, no X for non-root

[Larry Garfield]

So my Debian Sid box died the other night due to a power outage while I 
was in dreamland.  OK, no problem, just reboot everything as usual.

Problem: X will not load for any user but root, via startx or via kdm. 
Nor do I get any sound.  Nor do any vterms work other than tty1 and tty7 
(X).

I've tried rebooting and fscking, neither worked.  Apparently there is a 
bug in makedev 2.3.1-67 that breaks ssh and various other things with a 
permission problem on /dev/tty.  So I try fixing the permission, no joy. 
  I downgrade to 2.3.1-66 (testing), and that didn't work.  A day later 
a fixed version of makedev was released and I apt-got that, but it still 
didn't fix the problem.

Running startx as a user gives me a series of permission denied messages 
on /dev/null.  /dev/null, it turns out, now has permissions 770.  Why 
should non-root people not be allowed to read/write from /dev/null again?

Changing /dev/null to 777 doesn't fix it either, of course, but doesn't 
give a clear error.  My best guess based on /var/log/XFree86.0.log is 
that the glx module has an issue (unresolved symbol in the dri.o file) 
(I have an nvidia card with the nvidia driver), but switching to the nv 
driver doesn't change things.

Yet root can still startx and log in via kdm.

Since it's only affecting non-root users, I still think it's somehow 
permission related.  I'm guessing that audio and the other ttys are also 
caused by the same problem, although even root can't get audio playback.

Any suggestions on what to try next would be most appreciated, as right 
now my system is essentially useless to me.

-- 
Larry Garfield			AIM: LOLG42
larry at garfieldtech.com		ICQ: 6817012

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of 
exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an 
idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it 
to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the 
possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of 
it."  -- Thomas Jefferson