[SOLVED] linux server - won't start question

Telnet is TCP, you won't be able to establish a connection with a Xonotic server with that. Use netcat instead. Or better, the actual xonotic client. Or QStat, or any rcon program/script. You can use this: http://dpmaster.deathmask.net/?game=xono....3.4:26000 (adjust IP and port accordingly)

There's no syslog logging available. I'm not sure if that would meet syslog's purpose, honestly.

server.log is written in the personal data directory, as are databases and every other file. The install directory is left intact if a personal directory is used. Check the user's ~/.xonotic/data.

EDIT: The command "heartbeat" manually advertises the server to the master server. That should not be necessary, it should happen on startup and be instantly visible.

As for the FS_OpenVirtualFile errors, I'm guessing it's a small bug due to the maplist being empty. I guess some loop iterates over the g_maplist cvar and assumes there's at least one, the map name ends up being empty and it checks for "maps/$mapname.bsp" which would be "maps/.bsp". DarkPlaces has a hardcoded protection that prevents the gamecode from touching hidden dot-files, so it throws that warning. Nothing harmful.