On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 16:56:30 +0000, Alan Secker wrote:

> Upon rebooting the system, the kde splash came up
> followed by a blue screen with two horizontal parallel white patches. I
> assume the white patches would normally become entry fields for username
> and password but things never got that far. Although I can escape from
> lilo or can boot into rescue mode, I have no idea what to do next. Can
> anyone help me?

change id:5:initdefault: to id:3:initdefault: in /etc/inittab

After a login prompt, clear your error log with
cp /dev/null .xsession-errors

Now start your desktop manager with
startx

Ctl+Alt+backspace should drop you back to command line where you can
less .xsession-errors

another method of catching desktop startup messages

startx > /tmp/Xlog 2>&1

/tmp/Xlog has what happens.

Alan Secker writes:

>Thinking a system update might solve some of my printing problems, I did
>an urpmi update followed by an rpm rebuildb. (This is under Mandriva
>2006.0 official). Upon rebooting the system, the kde splash came up
>followed by a blue screen with two horizontal parallel white patches. I
>assume the white patches would normally become entry fields for username
>and password but things never got that far. Although I can escape from
>lilo or can boot into rescue mode, I have no idea what to do next. Can
>anyone help me?

>Alan

atl-ctrl-F1
and look at the messages.
alt-ctrl-F2 and log on as root and fix the problems.

On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 16:56:30 +0000, Alan Secker wrote:

> Thinking a system update might solve some of my printing problems, I did
> an urpmi update followed by an rpm rebuildb. (This is under Mandriva
> 2006.0 official). Upon rebooting the system, the kde splash came up
> followed by a blue screen with two horizontal parallel white patches. I
> assume the white patches would normally become entry fields for username
> and password but things never got that far. Although I can escape from
> lilo or can boot into rescue mode, I have no idea what to do next. Can
> anyone help me?
>
> Alan

Sounds like you may have changed your video resolution. I did this
recently by playing around with the different settings and ended up
with what you got. To change the settings back I rebooted into safe
mode, logged on as root, used the command drakconf which brought
up a primitive config gui and changed the setting back to where it was.
Cant use a mouse here, just tab key, arrows and enter.
hth
brianM

Alan Secker wrote:
> Thinking a system update might solve some of my printing problems, I did
> an urpmi update followed by an rpm rebuildb. (This is under Mandriva
> 2006.0 official). Upon rebooting the system, the kde splash came up
> followed by a blue screen with two horizontal parallel white patches. I
> assume the white patches would normally become entry fields for username
> and password but things never got that far. Although I can escape from
> lilo or can boot into rescue mode, I have no idea what to do next. Can
> anyone help me?
>
> Alan
>

Did you re-configure your urpmi sources prior to the "system update" ?
If so you could have selected 2007(default @ easyurpmi.zarb.org) and
that would royally **** your system.
Another explanation for botched GUI boot could be foul permissions in
your home dir(happened to me a couple of times); when you come to that
scrambled screen do Ctrl+Alt+F1, login as root, then
# init 3
when you get the prompt back
# chown -R /home/


--




Some customized and hard to find rpms here:
http://www.drivehq.com/folder/p1029971.aspx?view=detail
(Bandwidth is limited - use it wisely)

If you grab my rpms please consider signing up via this link
and getting me some referral points:
http://www.drivehq.com/secure/signup.aspx?refID=2454535

RLU #407952

Alan Secker wrote:
> Thinking a system update might solve some of my printing problems, I did
> an urpmi update followed by an rpm rebuildb. (This is under Mandriva
> 2006.0 official). Upon rebooting the system, the kde splash came up
> followed by a blue screen with two horizontal parallel white patches. I
> assume the white patches would normally become entry fields for username
> and password but things never got that far. Although I can escape from
> lilo or can boot into rescue mode, I have no idea what to do next. Can
> anyone help me?
>
> Alan
>

Did you re-configure your urpmi sources prior to the "system update" ?
If so you could have selected 2007(default @ easyurpmi.zarb.org) and
that would royally **** your system.
Another explanation for botched GUI boot could be foul permissions in
your home dir(happened to me a couple of times); when you come to that
scrambled screen do Ctrl+Alt+F1, login as root, then
# init 3
when you get the prompt back
# chown -R /home/


--




Some customized and hard to find rpms here:
http://www.drivehq.com/folder/p1029971.aspx?view=detail
(Bandwidth is limited - use it wisely)

If you grab my rpms please consider signing up via this link
and getting me some referral points:
http://www.drivehq.com/secure/signup.aspx?refID=2454535

RLU #407952

On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 12:00:23 -0600, Bit Twister wrote:

> On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 16:56:30 +0000, Alan Secker wrote:
>
>> Upon rebooting the system, the kde splash came up
>> followed by a blue screen with two horizontal parallel white patches. I
>> assume the white patches would normally become entry fields for username
>> and password but things never got that far. Although I can escape from
>> lilo or can boot into rescue mode, I have no idea what to do next. Can
>> anyone help me?
>
> change id:5:initdefault: to id:3:initdefault: in /etc/inittab
>
> After a login prompt, clear your error log with
> cp /dev/null .xsession-errors
>
> Now start your desktop manager with
> startx
>
> Ctl+Alt+backspace should drop you back to command line where you can
> less .xsession-errors
>
> another method of catching desktop startup messages
>
> startx > /tmp/Xlog 2>&1
>
> /tmp/Xlog has what happens.

I followed the instructions as far as I could but for some reason
/tmp/Xlog wouldn't write.

However, some error messages captured to the screen included:

fglrx: No matching Device section for instance (BUSID PCI:1:0:1 found

I rebooted under knoppix and compared Xorg.conf in both the defaulting
drive and the backup. Both had the same settings but for PCI:1:0:0

I can get to a command line login screen but can only get kde to come up
if I log in as root. Could this be a clue?

Alan

On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 15:17:08 +0000, Alan Secker wrote:

> I can get to a command line login screen but can only get kde to come up
> if I log in as root. Could this be a clue?

Create a new user, say junk. Login as junk and see if it works for junk.

If so, user account problem. If not, it would be a permission problem.

If user problem, remove user's .Xauthority file
rm .Xauthority
startx
Still broke,
mv .kde .kde_broke
startx

On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 09:20:52 -0600, Bit Twister wrote:

> On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 15:17:08 +0000, Alan Secker wrote:
>
>> I can get to a command line login screen but can only get kde to come up
>> if I log in as root. Could this be a clue?
>
> Create a new user, say junk. Login as junk and see if it works for junk.
>
> If so, user account problem. If not, it would be a permission problem.
>
> If user problem, remove user's .Xauthority file
> rm .Xauthority
> startx
> Still broke,
> mv .kde .kde_broke
> startx

Fantastic! Thank you for your invaluable help.

Alan

Alan Secker wrote:

> I can get to a command line login screen but can only get kde to come up
> if I log in as root. Could this be a clue?

Had you read all follow-ups to your topic you'd be /home by now(pun
intended) instead of asking the question that's already been answered.



--




Some customized and hard to find rpms here:
http://www.drivehq.com/folder/p1029971.aspx?view=detail
(Bandwidth is limited - use it wisely)

If you grab my rpms please consider signing up via this link
and getting me some referral points:
http://www.drivehq.com/secure/signup.aspx?refID=2454535

RLU #407952