Gnome crashes often

["David J. Kanter" <djkanter nwu edu>]

I would like to use Gnome with Sawmill but cannot because Gnome
crashes too often to be useful.

Typically I will be able to log on, through Debian's xdm, and Gnome
will start just fine. But usually within a few minutes all it takes
is a mis-click and Gnome dies. I've noticed it more frequently when
hitting the configurator button or the foot menu (because that's as
far as I get with Gnome).

If I hit the configurator button, no configurator comes up; if I hit
the foot menu, no menu pops up. The window manager stills run just
fine: I can move windows, close windows, use the window manager's
root menus, etc. But Gnome is dead, and the only way I can log out is
to hit control+alt+backspace.

But then another problem arises: I cannot log back in with this
~/.xsession:

xset dpms 1800 2700 3600

# This is background stuff:
fetchmail -d 300 &
# xscreensaver -timeout 5 &

# Start the window manager:
~/.sawmill-startup # just starts some programs I like
# exec sawmill
exec gnome-session

The only way to log back in with Gnome is to switch to tty1, log in as root,
kill the xdm process and esd process.

Any idea why this happens? I want to use Gnome. Let me know if you need more
info.

-- 
David J. Kanter
djkanter@nwu.edu