On 25/09/2011, at 10:00 AM, [email protected] wrote:

> 
> After I installed open SUSE 11.4 on 5/May/11 the system booted OK, normally, 
> through to the Gnome desktop.
> Sometime later an automatic update occurred after which I have only been able 
> to boot through in failsafe mode. Letting in boot through normally makes for 
> the display disappearing off the screen but I think it is still booting 
> through because, after I allow the time expected for a full boot through, I 
> can hear/instigate sounds.
> Subsequent updates haven't corrected this fault and it's occurred the same on 
> 2 separate installations - one on a pentium 4 HP, the other on a 64 bit P5 
> Acer.
> Anyone with any solutions to this?

Joseph

my words will generate hows of anguish from the slug-cognoscii, but your 
questions show that you are a new user so... , this is what I'd do:

Partition your disk manually 
10G   your usual root
10G  an alternate root partition for when you upgrade, break things, etc
1G    swap
TheRest /home, safe repository for your precious as time goes by.

Never turn on automatic updates. What for? They all too often break things, 
despite the hype don't do anything for you.
In the unlikely event of depressurization ... just re-install
Use a new root but the old /home

You can boot, at the blank screen do <ctrl><alt><F1> to get a console login. 
(else the machine is really dead)
Beware of the keyboards where you need to enable Fkeys before they will work

Once logged in do
cat .xsession-errors (<tab> is your friend to complete names ie .xses<tab> will 
give you .xsession adding -<tab> will complete the word.

See what it says. Maybe run: sax, maybe the easiest is just reinstall. Do it 
twice, once on 1st partition eg maybe thats /dev/sda1, once on 2nd, maybe 
that's /dev/sda2
Update one, does it break?

if <shudder><smile> you have a windows partition it will be /dev/sda1
you'd create
/dev/sda2 10G
/dev/sda3 10G
/dev/sda4 extended
/dev/sda5 1G swap
/dev/sda6 TheRest /home

In any event this is all about having fun and learning, so as SuSE says ... 
enjoy

James--
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