Xorg & Openbox help

Question

So I've been trying to solve these issues via IRC for a while, but perhaps I will get some help here. Keep in mind I am very new to Linux (but willing to learn)... so try speaking to me like I'm a 4 year old or your grandparents, otherwise I might be asking questions like "what does it mean to invoke something" (a gem of a question that I had to ask in IRC). Anyways, I've been trying to setup Xorg and Openbox for the past few days.
I installed what I assume are the necessary files when I read the wiki.
When I first installed xorg, I also installed Openbox and added the "exec openbox-session" to the ~/.xinitrc ; It worked, but was a bit buggy when opening the menu (right clicking). I was able to access the options. Because I didn't install a proper video driver, it was very low resolution and the screen margins were wacky.
So I downloaded the proper drivers and the screen was the normal 1280x1024. However, when I right clicked and selected anything it would crash; nothing moving, ctrl+alt+bksp not working either. After this I resolved that it was something from Xorg that is the problem; I made a configuration file, xorg.conf, and placed it in the right directory from the wiki. I have it here: http://rafb.net/p/wjptJT37.html
I did some other things but memory is not exactly great and this was all over the course of days. Essentially the current state is this: in my xinitrc I only have the line "exec xterm" uncommented; however, # X -config /etc/X11/xorg.conf does not do anything; no X, no nothing. startx doesn't do anything, just blanks the screen, then returns to shell.
My xorg log: http://rafb.net/p/TJIIkP79.html
I also tried to install xfce4, but when I start that up I get weird yellow bars across the screen, and everything freezes. The cursor moves, but the cursor state is frozen; a Tips dialog pops up but nothing else. Ctrl Alt Bksp doesn't work.
How do I resolve this? I'm very close to either deleting the partition and starting fresh (maybe I seriously fowled something up before this?) or trying to emulate in Virtual Box instead, neither of which I want to do. I'll be checking this thread often.
Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

Teshadael wrote:
epsilon: Do you know what fixed it?
If I load hal and openbox, it always results in openbox getting signal 11's, if I !hal, openbox works without a problem.
I'd like hal loaded for other things though.
Has anyone else been running into this?
EDIT:
Ok, just experimented a bit.
if I disable hal in the daemons, then start it once I'm in openbox, there doesn't appear to be any issues.
I've moved it around in the array, so I don't believe it has anything to do with when it's being loaded.
I am not sure about the order of your daemons, but hal needs to be the first things that needs to be started. Also if you have dbus listed, you should remove that since hal will start dbus for you.