On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 12:38 PM, Camaleón <noela...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 12:13:53 -0500, Paul Johnson wrote: > >> On a student's Debian system, I ran some updates and resulted in gdm >> refusing to start, with the error message that shows a picture of a sad >> computer and a message says: >> >> Oh no! Something has gone wrong. >> A problem has occurred and the system can't recover. Please contact a >> system administrator. >> >> I'm pretty sure this is due to a failure in the video drivers--some >> gnome3 packages installed and the nouveau video driver is not >> sufficient. And I am certain this problem happened when I tried to >> update to the network-manager from wheezy on his Squeeze-based system. >> I hoped some of you might help me think though the problem so I can >> fix that machine, next time it comes to the office. > > (...) > > Well, I've got that message under two different situations: > > - First, as you say, when there's a problem with the VGA card or driver > that cannot enable 3D acceleration properly which is needed by gnome- > shell to start. > > - Second, when there's an error (a "syntax" error) in "/usr/share/gnome- > shell/themes/gnome-shell.css" file. > > When this happens, you can still login to "GNOME classical" mode instead > and work from there until you correct the problem that makes gnome-shell > to halt. What I've never seen is gnome-shell crashing because of N-M or a > wireless related update :-? > >> This crash happens before GDM offers the list of users, so I don't >> understand how it could be related to a config problem in a user >> account. Right? Everybody says "check ~/.xsession-errors", but why? > > (...) > > Because that file registers the reason of the gnome-shell crash, so what > does it say? :-) >
I will check. But you seem not to understand something. This "Oh, NO.." error happens before anyone is allowed to log in. If no user is logged in--no user has even had a chance to enter a password because the graphical login display never starts--there would be no trace of trouble in ~/.xsession-errors because there is no X session. The trouble is before that. > Greetings, > > -- > Camaleón > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org > Archive: http://lists.debian.org/k0gmrj$anh$1...@dough.gmane.org > -- Paul E. Johnson Professor, Political Science Assoc. Director 1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504 Center for Research Methods University of Kansas University of Kansas http://pj.freefaculty.org http://quant.ku.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/caerodj94y9hx3gfx4r0soimx_pcrxzrurtd6csp+ndfivf8...@mail.gmail.com