I had been running SuSE 9.2 when the first signs of trouble arose. One
day a couple of months
ago, as KDE started, a dialog box appeared on the screen saying that KDE
could not start and
that I should check my installation. Booting did not help, but clicking
on the button then allowed
KDE to finish loading and run apparently normally. So one day about 3
weeks ago, I decided
to reinstall 9.2. Since that time, my machine has not been right.
All attempts to install SuSE 9.2, then 10.0, 9.1 and 9.0 have met with
failure. The process woould
work normally until the first boot in the new system. The graphic
interface would fail and I would
be dumped at the command line in run level 5. Typing root alone would
allow access to the system.
All attempts to create a workable XF86Config file failed. The normal
message in both the kdm and
Sax2 logs would be
/opt/kde3/bin/kdm_greet: symbol lookup error:
/usr/lib/libfontconfig.so.1: undefined symbol:
FT_Get_BDF_Property
This was the situation in the 9.x versions. 10.0 would have the command
line, but no entered
name would get past the password step.
Going further back to SuSE 8.2 and 8.1 improved the situation somewhat.
8.2 allowed me to enter
KDE but with only limited use of formerly useable software. While I
could use Mozilla and Firebird,
attempts to start thunderbird or firefox would be greeted with messages
that the programs could not
be found or that firefox was already running, and that it should be
terminated or the system rebooted.
SuSE 8.1 would no allow a user KDE, but root has no trouble using a
graphical interface, which I
am using to write this message.
Between installation attempts I have changed memory modules, used a
different hard disk, swapped
motherboards and disk cables with no noticeable changes in results.
But using a Suse Live 9.0 disk works, even for a configurable graphical
environment, but it is very slow.
My processor is an Athlon XP 2500+ two years old and my monitor is a
Viewsonic E90 capable of much
higher resolution than the 1284x1024 that I normally use.
All of the installation media had been used successfully prior to my
recent troubles. It has been a very
puzzling three weeks.
Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
Chauncey Kepford
--
[email protected]
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
