On 15 Mar, Adam Bogacki wrote:
> I have not been able to start in text mode. I have held down 'Alt' a
> number of times during boot with no result - it just goes through the
> usual routine.
>
> Unless better ideas surface in the next 12 hours or so, I'll start
> reinstalling tomorrow morning. At least I won't have lost any data.
"start in text mode"? Do you mean at boot time, using Alt-X to get a
text mode lilo boot? So that you can respond:
lilo: linux single
meaning, boot up in single user mode? If you do that, and edit
/etc/inittab so that the id:5:initdefault line is 3 instead of 5,
then it won't try to boot up X.
> addresses. Subsequent attempts to boot have ended with the X-server
> coming up with a graphical login screen, correct entry of name and
> password, a long pause and then the empty login screen again.
If you get as far as an X login, it means your kernel is almost
certainly fine. Much more likely that something has gone wrong with
your X configuration. You can do that by messing up your .xinitrc
file, or by messing up parts of your X configuration.
The thing to do would be to make the change I've suggested above.
Either by booting up in single user mode, or by flipping to a text
console (e.g. Ctrl-Alt-F2), and logging in there, then becoming root
and altering the inittab line.
Or, as root, just say
/sbin/init 3
to force the system out of X mode (run level 5) and back to text mode
(run level 3).
THEN, start up X but capture the output so you can see what's killing X.
Login as yourself on a text console, then just:
startx > x11.log 2>&1
or xinit > x11.log 2>&1
(assuming you're not using csh or tcsh).
Just by inspecting the end of x11.log should tell you lots.
luke
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