Hey there, I was wondering if anyone can help me.

I have Mandrake 10 installed on my machine. Everything was working fine until I tried too boot into Mandrake today and I get a login prompt in the shell-state. No GUI.

What happened? And how can I get back into a GUI interface.

Any help would be appreciated.

try runing

drakeconf

as the root user

Which option to play with? The Display? I've tried changing the display configuration. It doesnt seem to be working. Anything else?

How can I login from shell and get into a GUI interface? What command can I use?

hi
at the command prompt

run
#startx
to go to gui mode

if unsuccessfull
post the error messages here
regards
gaurav

Tried that. Get fatal error.

Fatal server error
Could not open default font 'fixed'.

Any ideas how to fix this?

hi
i am not sure of this but give it a try
there is a server called XFS(X font server)

have u closed any such servcie when the last time u used ur system

see if u can start xfs by
#service xfs start

then #startx

see if it works

regards

You could try rem'ing out the XF86config line
FontPath "unix/:-1" so that the X server uses the built in font paths.
There could be a problem with the xfs font server or you could have a full file system.

masand: Service in on. Still not working.
jschiwal: I wish I knew how? Which file? Which dir?

If I reinstall Mandrake, will I loose my documents under the user directory?

Have you tried logging in as root and typing init 5

Yes Crane. Tried that. Nada.

Can anyone tell me; If I reinstall Mandrake 10, will I loose my user files?

For X systems, if it gets far enough to try opening X, there will be a log in /var/log

If you get the command line prompt in text mode, log in, probably as root.

Then, type ls -l /var/log <enter>

There shoud be a file something like this, number may vary but is usually 0.

xf86.0.log

I cannot check this name because I am on borrowed win machine. However, it should be obvious with 3 part name as I have shown.

Then, assuming above name, type:

cat /var/log/xf86.0.log | less <enter>

This should give you the full log file on your screen. Scroll up and down with arrows or page keys. To quit, type q

Look at that file carefully. Lines will have letters at the beginning such as WW or II. EE means error which is what is important, and there may (mor may not) be an explanation, or at least important information to present to the assembled experts.

In your case, you already know it is a font problem from the direct error message. Look for the config file in google for another wey to call out fonts. I am trying to think what they call the config file. It's hell to be without my machine so I can look.

Oh, yeah, XF86Config-4 is one on some distros. Now where is that sucker? Um, /etc/X11, can anyone with a machine give the full path for that thing? It is a very large file mostly of comments, and sometimes the comments can be uncommented and tried. I had a problem on Drake 10.0 (which is no longer on my machine because it wouldn't run X correctly with NVIDIA drivers, and would not open eth0. It called out a unix font which apparently is not part of free Drake 10.0 but comes with pay version.

rm'ing mean removing, right?

i having the same problem as infekt,when i view my /etc/X11/XF86Config, this is one of the part :

FrontPath " unix/:7110"

should i remove or rename it?

Irlandes: I checked out the log file that you metioned. Except I have six files:
XFree86.0.log
XFree86.0.log.old
XFree86.1.log
XFree86.1.log.old
XFree86.9.log
XFree86.9.log.old

There were no (EE)s but there was a (WW):
(WW) Open APM failed (/dev/apm_bios) (No such file or directory)
There were a couple of (**)s, (--)s, and (==)s. What are these?

Now I did notice that sound configuration failed during shutdown? Hmm. Tried drakconf, but didnt see a configuration section for sound (maybe I missed it).

Okay, so the system can't find the fixed font. What should I do? can I download the font? Should I change a line in a config file?

Rem'ing out means starting the line with the '#' character. This makes the line a comment and can be easily reversed by removing the '#' character.