Problems when booting up...

[Nils Kassube]

On Wednesday 25 April 2007 14:49, Larry Shields wrote:
> Derek Broughton wrote:
> > Larry Shields wrote:
> >> I'm not sure if anyone has had this problem or not, but here is what
> >> happens when I boot the system up...
> >
> > Not in a long, long, time...
> >
> >> It starts out with grub, then show a black screen with a loading
> >> bar, but the bar gets just about to the end, then it reverts back to
> >> a black screen, with a login prompt...
> >>
> >> I now have to login, then startx to get it up and running...Might
> >> anyone know how to correct the problem, so that it will bootup
> >> correctly...???
> >
> > What do you _want_ to happen?  startx starts X for a single user, and
> > afaik isn't ever set up to automatically run from init (though I'm
> > sure you could do it, I wouldn't recommend it).  If you want a GUI
> > login (GDM, KDM, XDM), then first you need to have the appropriate
> > package installed, and active in /etc/rc2.d/ (installing one of the
> > *dm packages _should_ set up the init links).
> >
> > If you can run that script from sudo, then check /var/log/Xorg.*.log
> > and /var/log/*dm.log for error messages.
> >
> > Since startx does work, I would expect that you're using a login
> > manager and the errors are in the /var/log/*dm.log file.
>
> Hello Derek,
> Well what I want it too do it to start up as it all ways did when it
> was first installed...
> Showing the bar loading, then it switches to a screen with a light
> brown in color with a small rectangular box for loging in...
> At that point typing my username & password, hiting enter it brings up
> Gnome desktop...
>
> But now what it does is show the loading bar, but it never finishes
> loading, then it switches me to a back screen with a log in
> prompt...From that point I log in, then I have too use startx to bring
> up my desktop...So I suppose it is GDM that I am looking for...So what
> is the appropriate package that I am missing...??? Plus why would it be
> missing since it has all ways worked prior to this problem, I can not
> see what has been changed, or remove and why...

Please check if the package gdm is installed. Furthermore there should be 
a file /etc/X11/default-display-manager which has the path to gdm, i.e. 
there is a line

/usr/sbin/gdm

in that file.

>
> I looked in my /var/log dir., but did not see a *dm.log file, so what
> may I ask is *dm, do you mean the dmesg.gz log's...???

Derek meant the logfile of your display manager which should be gdm in 
your case. The logfile for gdm is in /var/log/gdm/ at least on my machine 
which runs Dapper. However, if you have used kdm also (that's the display 
manager for Kubuntu / KDE), there should be a logfile /var/log/kdm.log as 
well.


Nils