X server terminating

[Bryce Harrington]

On Sat, Nov 10, 2007 at 05:26:52AM -0500, Paul Kaplan wrote:
> Since installing Kubuntu 7.10, I've been having the following problem.
> 
> After a variable amount of inactivity (usually 15-45 minutes but occasionally 
> well over an hour), the X server inexplicably terminates.  The only clue in 
> the system log is:
> 
> kdm[5118]	X server for display :0 terminated unexpectedly
> 
> 
> I've run Kubuntu since 6.06 on the same machine and never experienced the 
> problem.
> 
> Any ideas what the problem might be or where to begin trouble shooting?

The failure mode sounds similar to that of a screensaver or power saving
issue.  See if you can force the freeze to happen by deliberately
turning on the screensaver, putting the monitor into power save mode, or
so forth.  If so, then see this for some debugging tips:

  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingXorg

Bryce