On Wed, 07 Sep 2011 17:46:30 -0400, Shacristo wrote: > Is it actually failing to start or is it executing .xinitrc and exiting? > .xinitrc needs to hand off control to a wm. You can still use twm from > .xinitrc. Yes, this was the problem - .xinitrc was executing and exiting. And this is what, pardon my ignorance, I interpreted as X failing to start. I've resolved it by 'cp /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc ~/.xinitrc' and then adding my 2 lines before 'twm &' command. Thank you, and everyone replied.