UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

I just upgraded my RedHat 8.0 system to 9.0. The upgrade included a new kernel and several package updates. I upgraded by simply inserting installation CD and rebooted, selected upgrade system option. When I rebooted after the install I get the following message:
INIT:Id "x" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes

Can anyone help me with this? Note: I have tried rebooting with the old kernel but still get the same error.

Here's what I could find..

http://sdb.suse.de/en/sdb/html/maddin_respawn.html
http://www.unixguide.net/linux/faq/09.24.shtml

There are quite a few other links if you search for that error on google.

Basically it looks like this could be caused by any program starting and terminating too quickly.. when this happens, the offending entry in /etc/inittab is disabled for 5 minutes. The first link lists several files you can try checking for. The second link provides other things to try.

Sorry I don't more about this .. maybe you could list the contents of your /etc/inittab file in the meantime so someone else who knows more could possibly find the offending program (if that's the case).

I have seen this problem arise very often with IcePack Linux ( http://www.icepack.de/en ) - it is usually due to X server misconfiguration.

Hmm..based on the link, I should expect to see a number where the "x" is (according the the link : Id "x" is the number in the leftmost column of the /etc/inittab file: ), however, the system is literally kicking out the following:

"init: Id "x" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes." i.e. no number in the X field. Not in a position to look at my inittab file at the moment, but this would seem to suggest an invalid entry in the /etc/inittab file. What process would update this file? I didnt think it would ever be updated, rather, it would just be read.

interesting......

Perhaps* it's time to boot off the CD in rescue mode and vi /etc/intab...

*forgive my spelling errors!

Maybe it's to do with the change to Xfree 4.3.x. Perhaps you could boot into runlevel 1 or 3 and play with system files, taking out unnessesary services and making sure there are not legacy references to XF86 4.2 stuff.

I always find the easiest answer is to reformat. Yes, it's a pain in the arse to restore backups, but it could save you a world of pain.

Never trust 'upgrades'. If you're going to upgrade to a newer version of a prepackaged distro, I reccomend doing it cleanly. This is especially true with all versions of Windows. Nothing says corruption like a new SP