startx dilemma

[jlowell]

I run four machines here with Gentoo, three workstations configured identically and a web server. Booting into one of the workstations last night and running startx I reached my WM but the mouse wouldn't move, it was frozen. The only way I could exit was by resetting. Rebooting, everything seemed to function properly and it continues to, but I've since noticed that the startx command's output is different than it previously had been and that it is different from the each of the other machines also. Running startx now on the effected machine, I get output

hostname: Unknown host

and on the other machines I get

hostname: Unknown host
Using authority file /root/.Xauthority
Writing authorityfile /root/.Xauthority

Clearly, something's gotten changed; the startx man page would seem to suggest an altered environmental variable. Now I know that the startx script operates as a front end for xinit, but where to find the startx script itself so as to compare it with that on the other machines? Might someone direct me to it or otherwise suggest a solution?

jlowell