wierd problem with prefdm, can't exec from /etc can from /tmp

[a8hex]

I've just installed Fedora 8 onto a USB 4GB key. Everything when great, I left it updating last night and then let it reboot this morning. When I did this however X didn't startup. On the console I just get

init: Id "x" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes

So I go and take a look at the inittab file, and it's trying to execute

[root@duck ~]# grep ^x /etc/inittab
x:5:respawn:/etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon

So I try this from a ssh session, I just get the prompt back.
After checking the file, I see it's a shell script so I try

sh -xv /etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon

and it starts no problem.
I try adding a

set -xv

into the script to see where it fails ...

# Fallbacks, in order
exec gdm "$@" >/dev/null 2>&1 </dev/null
+ exec gdm -nodaemon

So it's trying to exec gdm.

Before I make any further changes to the script I copy it to /tmp and try things from there. It works no problem.

cp /etc/X11/prefdm /tmp
/tmp/prefdm -nodaemon

works with no problem

/etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon

the exec fails.


hmmm I'm confused!