I inadvertently cut the power to the room where my PC was running Debian 4.0.
Now when I boot I get as far as the usual screen with: the debian logo and
the date & time in the bottom right corner; the "Session Type" and "Menu"
tabs at the bottom left corner and the "Welcome to redcube" window in the
middle with space for my user name ("robin") and password. Now, however,
when I press enter after choosing a desktop (kde or gnome) from the "Session
Type" tab the screen goes black for a few seconds and then returns to its
previous state: i.e. kde (or gnome) won't start.
However, if I choose "Console Login'" from the Menu tab login, as euther
root or robin, succeeds. Use of ls -a suggests that my HD is ok. Under
either robin or root, if I don't enter any thing for several minutes line
after line of the form "DROPPED IN=eth0 OUT=MAC=ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff: (A lot
more stuff follows which I haven't included)" appear.
If I log in as root and run startx the gnome desktop opens. But if I log in
as robin and run startx neither kde nor gnome opens but I get a message
which looks like it might be part of /var/log/Xorg.0.log.
Here are some things I have tried that didn't help:
logging with TWN, Twn or Failsafe
aptitude reinstall kdm
dpkg -reconfigure kdm
aptitude reinstall kdebase
aptitude remove kdebase, then aptitude install kdebase
creating a new user and attempting to start kde
I have checked /var/log/Xorg.0.log and xsession-errors but couldn't find
anything that looked important.
Many kind people from the Calgary Linux Users Group have given me
suggestions but so far the problem persists. I would appreciate any help
you could give me.
Robin Carter
