[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
On Thu, Oct 26, 2006 at 10:25:37AM -0400, Matthew Krauss wrote:
[snip]
What I would try to isolate the problem is:
1. Reboot in to single user mode.
2. Log in as root.
3. Try starting X alone:
$ X 2>&1 | less
3a. If X starts, you may kill it with ctrl-alt-backspace;
X starts.
Killed it with ctrl-alt-backspace
3b. If X does not start, you have the output to debug;
3c. If you get a kernel panic, you know you have serious X problems.
4. Next try starting gdm directly:
$ /etc/init.d/gdm start
4a. If gdm starts, there is probably a problem in your startup scripts;
4b. If gdm does not start, you can check the logs under /var/log/gdm/
4c. If you get a kernel panic, you know you have serious gdm problems.
gdm starts. A cursor blinks in the upper left of a black screen, then
the cursor disappears, leaving the black screen of death.
Did a hard reset to reboot. No trace of a log file.
try /etc/init.d/kdm start
it refuses; kdm is not default.
dpkg-reconfigure kdm
and make kdm the default.
repreat
/etc/init.d/kdm start
acts just like /etc/init.d/gdm did before -- black screen of death
This was good thinking, here -- it's very surprising, but you seem to
have shown that both gdm and kdm have a problem where X alone does
not?? I'm not sure how to explain that off hand, but will think about
it... At any rate, you've also ruled out interference from more than
one *dm running at a time.
reset to reboot.
This time, after the usual environment checking, it starts a maintanance
shell with a shorter path:
/lib/init:/sbin:/bin
As a result, lots of commands don't work. Suppliying the path
explicitly,
/usr/bin/dpkg-reconfigure
fails. Its first error message reports that it cannot execute the
'locale' command. True enough. 'locale' is not on the path.
This looks like a but in dpkg-reconfigure -- shouldn't scripts that are
executed as root specify their command names a little more explicitly?
Something is wrong with the maintenance shell this time -- why has its
$PATH suddenly changed?
Just a wild wild guess, but maybe you have developed problems on your
file system from the hard boots -- if there is anything more serious
then the automatic checks can handle, you will be dumped in to
maintenance shell from where you are supposed to fix it, and I *think*
that it is different from the regular single-user mode you were using
before. Did you see any messages to that effect? Something about
running fsck?
Regards,
Matthew
[snip]
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