Stalls before session manager starts. Fix or reinstall?

Chriswaterguy · 09-01-2009, 11:16 PM

I installed MEPIS Linux (so far so good) then installed a heap of packages including LXDE, about 120MB worth all up. Now it won't start - after grub, the progress bar gets to about 20% then it stalls. It was a clean install, so I don't have a previous kernel to select from grub.

Do I have to reinstall, or is there something I can try first? I'm asking because I have limited bandwidth here in Indonesia.

More info:
Distro: SimplyMEPIS 8.0
Packages installed: about 120 MB worth - LXDE [meta package including Openbox & the other modular components like LXpanel), gqview, amule, gkrellm, epiphany-browser, gedit, maybe some others that I missed here.
Screen output:

Code:

Loading, please wait...
mdadm: No arrays found in config file or automatically
kinit: name_to_dev_t(/dev/sda6)=sda6(8,6)
kinit: trying to resume from /dev/sda6
kinit: No resume image, doing normal boot...
splashy error: Timeout 120 sec occurred while waiting for a message on the Splashy socket.

Thanks for any help.

Chriswaterguy · 09-02-2009, 04:01 PM

No answer - I didn't get any response on the ##linux IRC channel either, so I take that to mean I have to reinstall. Or at least, I don't know how to do otherwise.

My plan is that this time after installing Linux, I'll set the package manager to not delete the .deb files after install packages, and then add packages one or a few at a time between restarts. Then when I encounter the problem again, I can narrow down the problems, and I'll have the .debs for a quick, low bandwidth reinstall.