computer opens a shell instead of "normal" desktop
 

Hello,
Yesterday I installed Mandriva2008.1 on my computer and it worked ok. This morning when starting it up again it opened a (bash)shell instead of the "usual" desktop environment. It lets me login and get to my folders and everything, but I prefer the desktop environment. I'm not very familiar (yet) with all the comments and all and have no idea how to proceed (altough I'm considering reinstalling Mandriva). Any suggestions?
Thank you.
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startx
 

If your system is installed properly and nothing relevant is deleted, then you can launch the desktop environment with the "startx" command.

Within the desktop environment you should find the proper administration tool for Mandriva to set the default login, which is currently a terminal login. You will need the graphical login option.

On some systems you can also set the graphical login to automatically login into a predefined user account (the old Mandrake systems had this, so Mandriva might have it too) - on single user PC's a reasonable feature.

I'm not using Mandriva currently, so I can't give more specific info.

Linux Archive

Thank you for your fast reply.
If I type startx, it replies that the command is not found (I tried it also as a su). I did un- and reinstall several things yesterday, but I thought that if I had deleted something relevant the desktop wouldn't have worked yesterday already (or is that a wrong assumption). Any way I can check this? Or any other suggestions?
Thank you.

Try with /usr/bin/startx,if that doesnt work post the output of whereis startx.

I tried /usr/bin/startx, but that doesn't work either. It says: No such file or directory.

different than windows, posix tends to run stuff from ram so it is possible to delete a file it is supposedly using (like pulling the rug from under him).

i think some systems have a symlink to X. maybe which X will give you a clue.

I did the which X and I got back: /usr/bin/X. So I typed that and now I'm stuck with a blue/green screen :confused:
I'm stuck literally: I don't know how to get out of here without restarting the computer...
Is it time to reinstall???

You didn't post the output of the whereis startx.You wouldn't have this problem if you did.If you can't do anything else then reboot then reinstall.

I have the same problem,

Yesterday i was using my desktop with no problems, all i did was installing a dvd app and installing the updates it automatically finds.
When i try the startx command it gives me an entire screen with stuff i dont understand, but it says that it failed to load the NVIDIA kernel... How do i make it load the kernel?

I couldn't get out of the blue screen so I decided to reboot and reinstall. Thank you for all your suggestions (and good luck Aimo).
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