I found the problem and it is fixed. I downloaded xserver-common and reinstalled it and that seems to have fixed the problem. I have no idea how it got messed up in the first place but I believe it may have been that I installed a package which is now obsolete, and it wiped out /etc/X11/Xserver
thanks -- Andrew ----------------------------- GnuPG Public KeyID: 0x48109681 *we all live downstream*
