Workaround & Possible Cause - "Failed to activate core device - Could not invoke xkbcomp" on Failed X Server Launch

[Charles Sheridan <charles dot e dot sheridan at ericsson dot com>]

Hi all,

This week, after upgrading my Cygwin installation for the first time since ~April of 2011, X server startup failed, with the below oft-reported entries at the end of /cywin/var/log/xwin/Xwin.0.log --

...
[ 10092.016] (II) GLX: Initialized Win32 native WGL GL provider for screen 0
[ 10092.235] (EE) Couldn't open compiled keymap file /var/lib/xkb/server-0.xkm
[ 10092.235] (EE) XKB: Failed to load keymap. Loading default keymap instead.
[ 10092.313] (EE) Couldn't open compiled keymap file /var/lib/xkb/server-0.xkm
[ 10092.313] XKB: Failed to compile keymap
[ 10092.313] Keyboard initialization failed. This could be a missing or incorrect setup of xkeyboard-config.
[ 10092.313] 
Fatal server error:
[ 10092.313] Failed to activate core devices.
[ 10092.313] Server terminated with error (1). Closing log file.

This occurs on startup attempts from Xwin, startx, & startxwin.  

I have not previously seen X server startup failure, over 10 years of Cygwin-X use on several different mswin machines.

X server startup failure persists after Cygwin re-installation following an HP Vista Enterprise laptop reboot, without any Cygwin processes running, and despite post-install run of several recommended variations on `rebaseall` -- `rebaseall -b 0x77000000` under both ash & dash, and without the -b arg.  

=> WORKAROUND: The new "Xlaunch" in the All Programs/Cygwin-X dir off the Windows Start Button starts X without issue.  

=> POSSIBLE CAUSE: The same Xwin.0.log errors are reported in several X windows fora for platforms other than Cygwin.  The first link below is a long entry in a Debian forum concluding that the issue relates to a problematic memory module, that can be bypassed via the "nopat" option to XWin.  I couldn't get the Cygwin XWin cmd to recognize this option.  
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=646987

This link is a Google search on "x server nopat option" 
http://www.google.com/webhp?rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS410US410&sourceid=chrome-instant&ix=seb&ie=UTF-8#hl=en&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS410US410&sclient=psy-ab&q=x+server+nopat+option&oq=x+server+nopat+option&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_l=hp.3...21501l55842l0l56000l42l29l0l2l2l7l149l2856l13j15l29l0.frgbld.&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=af73696fe4de10c7&ix=seb&biw=1180&bih=914

The attached cygcheck.out.edited has removed the env vars/aliases from my Cygwin session.

Regards,
Charles Sheridan

Attachment: cygcheck.out.edited
Description: cygcheck.out.edited

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