KDE Konsole Shows no Prompt, just the Cursor
 

I have just upgraded from Kernel 2.4.29 to Kernel 2.6.10 in Slackware 10.1. I installed ALL packages, and the relevant one here is KDE 3.3.2

Whenever I bring up a Konsole in KDE, as user, it comes up normally, otherwise it is ONLY A BLANK SCREEN WITH THE CURSOR FLASHING IN THE UPPER LEFT CORNER. The prompt does not appear, and naturally the Konsole is unusable. Otherwise, the Konsole is not frozen; I can still access the 'Settings' etc. All Konsoles under any user account show the same behaviour when activated.

HOWEVER, when I bring up KDE as root, the prompt appears in the Konsole NORMALLY. Perhaps there is a permissions problem somewhere!!!

I cannot find anything on Google, but I have done the following:

- uninstalled and reinstalled KDE three times,

- even reinstalled the whole system, as an upgrade, not from scratch -- hence all the configuration files from the first installation were still there.

- I have tried the basic Kernel, with no modifications from me, and the Konsole still does not work.

I do not know if it is related, but there is another problem which I have had with the Konsole BEFORE the prompt started to be unavailable . When I click on "Settings > Font > Unicode, the following message appears.

Font
'-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal-15-140-75-75-c-90-iso10646-1'
not found.
Check README.linux.console for Help.

Now I had a similar message when I clicked on the 'linux' setting under 'Font.' I learned from a post that this is a default situation with KDE 3.3, and I corrected it by loading fonts with KDE's font manager (the .pcf files in /opt/kde/share/fonts -- for those who are having a similar problem). However, this procedure does nothing to eliminate the above error message generated by clicking on UNICODE in the Konsole. I would like to get rid of this error message because I have no idea if it is related to the Konsole problem.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Regarding the above problem, I have something to add:

When "support for hotpluggable devices" is compiled into the kernel, then the KDE konsole does NOT work for users, as above.

When this support for hotpluggable devices is NOT compiled, then the KDE konsole DOES work for users. Compiling the USB support as a module, or compiling it into the kernel, makes no difference.


Strangely, I have another machine with the exact same configuration, Slackware 10.1 with 2.6.10, and there is no problem with the konsole when support for hotpluggable devices is built in.

Bye,

I'm running 2.6.16. Everything has been fine for the last couple of months. konsole works for root, but not normal users. I'm thinking something happened to the permissions. I can't be sure as to what. If I fix it I will post the solution back here. I have not rebooted. I refuse to reboot. I don't think that has anything to do with it.

I am so incredibly frustrated with this issue. I'm glad I found someone with the exact same problem but I still have not found solution! I haven't been this frustrated with Linux in years. This is such a stupid thing. I am able to login remotely just fine can't fire up ANY terminals as normal users only as root. As root they all work fine! When I fire up a generic terminal as a normal user I get this:

There was an error creating the child process for this terminal.

Both you guys using slack? I had the same problem on Gentoo, and solved it by adding my user to group "tty". Maybe you need to be in this group too?

I saw that on a Gentoo blog. I went ahead and tried what you had suggested already. Nothing worked. This was something else. I actually just reproduced the error on my other system by loading and unloading some kernel modules. I fixed both systems with a reboot. I can't believe I had to reboot. I never reboot. I can't get over that!

Thanks for the help. I don't expect a response from the others on this thread because the post was so old. I explored everything in creation to find the problem and I've found nothing short of the reboot that worked!

I've tried unloading and reloading a couple of the modules I was messing with but I still can't make it do it again! I was messing with scsi modules like sg. I had also been messing with hotplug and udev as well as some device node stuff. Can't reproduce the error again!

I'm trying to make my 4 in 1 usb camera card reader work. It worked fine under the 2.4 kernel but I can't make it work with the 2.6 kernel. That's for another day. I'm burned out now. Thanks for your reply.

Oh and yes, I only use Slackware. I gave up on other distributions years ago. They just have too many problems. I WORK and PLAY on my computers so they have to "just work". That's why I'm so distraught I had an issue like this with Slack. It's very rare.

console error
 

After installing a fresh system, then running through the CISecurity hardening benchmark I also recieved the console error regarding child process. Using Redhat clone CentOS 4.3.

My fix turned out to be the removal of a typo in my /etc/fstab

None /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0

There was a space after the comma; once the space was removed and I rebooted - my console worked again.

Cheers

It was nothing to do with fstab for me. I've been watching the kernel development news groups and there have been some problems with usb modules. I think they have largely been addressed. The issue was when ohci_hcd, uhci_hcd, ehci_hcd are sequentially trying to load. I can't remember what order but stuff was getting hosed up a bit when they were loading. I kind of patched it by unloading ones that cause problems at boot up with an rc.local entry like /sbin/rmmod ehci-hcd. I think this was ehci_hcd in my case that causes issues. As long as I stay away from the problem ones I'm okay. I think this is fixed in 2.6.18. I'm still on 2.6.16.