Alex
The only RPM I actually tried to install was cdrecord from disc 2 of the
Mandrake set. I used Drake so I do not see where that would have corrupted
any settings.
Glad to know of the things I can check if it happens again.
Thanks
Charles
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alex V Flinsch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2000 5:32 AM
Subject: Re: [newbie] The Day That KDE Died
> On Tue, 16 May 2000, you wrote:
> > Well, I had my first big Linux problem today. I had been in this morning
> > looking at some rpm packs and shutdown as usual. After lunch when I
booted,
> > lilo went through its checklist with all [OK] and gets to the black
screen
> > that you see just before the KDE login screen appears. Then there is a
quick
> > flash of color in the center as KDE is trying to start then black
screen,
> > flash of color black screen, flash of color black screen, and so on. I
had
> > no avenue of escape other than the reset switch.
>
> Tha fact that you got this far means that you did not kill Linux, but
somehow
> messed up something for X.
>
>
> > If anyone has an idea as to what might have caused my problem or
better
> > yet a way to fix it if it happens again let me know. 2 things you can
cross
> > off the list are hardware changes and display properties they were all
the
> > same.
>
> Depends on exactly what you were doing while looking at rpms. Did you
install
> or delete any?
>
> If it happens again do the following:
>
> boot to the Linux console (enter linux 3 at the lilo prompt)
> try to start x with the following command string
>
> startx > xinfo_stdout 2> xinfo_stderr
>
> x will probably die on you the same way that it did before, to make things
> easier now, just swap consoles (ctrl-alt-f2) and login again.
>
> Take a look at the xinfo_stdout and xinfo_stderr files in youre home
directory.
> Something in them might give us a clue as to what happened.
>
>
>
>
> --
> Alex
> (Go easy on me, I'm a COBOL programmer in real life)
>
>
