gdm woes

[Matt Nelson <mnelson dynatec com>]

Problem:  I walk away from my machine (left either at the gdm login
screen or locked with xscreensaver) for an hour or two.  When I return,
the display has been killed, and all I have is a monitor filled with the
default X hatch background.

/var/log/messages has these entries:

Dec 14 11:27:31 man PAM_unix[18004]: (system-auth) session closed for user
mnelson
Dec 14 11:27:31 man gdm[18004]: gdm_auth_user_remove: /home/mnelson is not
owned by uid 0.
Dec 14 11:27:31 man gdm[18004]: gdm_auth_user_remove: Ignoring
suspiciously looking cookie file /home/mnelson/.Xauthority
Dec 14 11:27:31 man gnome-name-server[18157]: input condition is: 0x10,
exiting
Dec 14 11:27:31 man modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module char-major-195
Dec 14 11:27:33 man gdm[18431]: gdm_slave_windows_kill_ioerror_handler:
Fatal X error - Restarting :0
Dec 14 11:27:36 man modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module char-major-195
Dec 14 11:28:07 man gdm[18435]: Failed to start X server several times in
a short time period; disabling display :0
Dec 14 11:28:40 man gdm[18447]: Failed to start X server several times in
a short time period; disabling display :0

The "Failed to start X server" messages repeat every half minute or so,
util I log in again.

Needless to say, this is VERY annoying.  What is going on???

-matt

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Matthew Nelson
Dynamics Technology, Inc. 
21311 Hawthorne Blvd., Suite 300, Torrance, CA 90503-5610
Voice: (310) 543-5433   FAX: (310) 543-2117   Email: mnelson dynatec com