I have used Linux for about 8 months (RedHat 5.2) and have recently started
using Mandrake 6.0. I have been generally extremely impressed with
Mandrake, however I have noticed a few strange occurences.
1) I have always operated in runlevel 5 and used the Mandrake logon screen
to shutdown or reboot my machine. Now I have rarely rebooted, however on
the two occasions I have used the Mandrake Shutdown button to reboot, the
startup process informs me that hda1(hda6) was not cleanly unmounted and
proceeds to run fsck. Not a problem in itself, but I hate it when something
doesn't work as it is supposed to and I don't know why. This same problem
also occurred the single time I tries shutdown -r now.
2) On some occassions this same problem has occurred when merely booting up
the machine. I know fsck is supposed to run after a certain number of
mounts, however this problem has been occurring at irregular intervals
sometimes as close as three boots apart. I stress that I always shut down
properly, using either the Mandrake Shutdown button, or occasionally
shutdown -h now.
3) This fsck has never caused me much trouble until last night when the fsck
indicated a large number of errors including a reference to
/usr/share/config/kdmrc (I may have this path and file name slightly
incorrect. I apologise I am writing from work 12 hours later). It also
made reference to a saved Civilisation - Call to Power game. When the fsck
was complete the boot up process, which always indicates everything OK, came
up with a FAILED message. I believe it said (again it was a while ago) that
it was unable to read /usr/share/config/kdmrc. The next indication of
something amiss was when X flashed up with the standard KDE login screen
instead of the Mandrake screen.
Using the Kpackage program I found the package that is responsible for the
/usr/share/config/kdmrc file. It came up with a cross instead of a tick.
Thinking I was clever I reinstalled the package and rebooted. Alas no
change, the boot up process still indicated a failed read of
/usr/share/config/kdmrc and I still received the KDE login screen. Further
investigation revealed that /usr/../kdmrc was a file of size 0. Also, I
think the saved Civ CTP game has disappeared.
My question then is - how do I get my beloved Mandrake login screen back?
Win9x friends laughed when I had to su root etc to shutdown and now I have
got my own back I don't want that Shutdown button disappearing.
Also what is causing these random fsck's? I have heard that there are some
file system problems with 2.2.9. Is this the cause? Will the Mandrake
kernel update solve the problem?
The file names I have stated MAY BE INCORRECT. I aplogise for this, however
I am hoping that the description of my problem will be enough to give you an
idea of its likely cause.
Thankyou
PS As a quick query - why, whenever I add any new users to my system does
KDE give me double icons for everything, one in upper case, one in lower
(CDROM & cdrom, PRINTER & printer) ? It never happened for root, nor the
non-privilleged user created during install.
