error creating the child process for this terminal

[Fred Roller]

On Thu, 2009-08-27 at 16:01 +0200, Oliver Grawert wrote:
> hi
> Am Donnerstag, den 27.08.2009, 15:55 +0200 schrieb Siggy Brentrup:
> > On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 13:24 +0200, Oliver Grawert wrote:
> > > hi,
> > > Am Donnerstag, den 27.08.2009, 14:09 +0300 schrieb sam R:
> > > 
> > > > Now, since Ubuntu doesn't allow you to sign-in as root from the
> > > > start-up GUI window, I'm having a problem modifying files to fix the
> > > > Terminal and Update Manager errors.
> > > you can always boot into single user mode, that will get you into a root
> > > terminal ...
> > 
> > Tried that the other week, I was prompted for *root*'s password
> > which doesn't exist :(
> that can happen if you have set a rootpw once and locked it later again
> (i think there is a bug open for sulogin about that)
> 
> ciao
> 	oli

You could try to log in as guest (choose guest from the drop down list
when you click your name in upper right).  If this issue is not user
specific, get a terminal and "su [user]" once there "sudo su -".  

Though this may work, logging in the recovery console from boot is still
the best option to me.  Also, have you tried "alt+f2" and typing
"gnome-terminal"(assuming you're running gnome) from your user desktop.
This may give a terminal.  "alt+f2" gives a "run application" window.

For the update manager, if you get to a terminal then you can try
updating manually with:
	sudo apt-get update
	sudo apt-get upgrade
run both commands in order listed.
-- 
Fred R.
www.fwrgallery.com

"Life is like Linux - simple; if you are fighting it, you are doing
something wrong."