could not start kstartupconfig
 

i am new to the linux community - been using mepis8 for five months - no problems until yesterday
it won't let me logon
i get "could not start kstartupconfig - check your inst"
i have neither downloaded nor installed anything recently
nor have i knowingly made any changes
i can logon as root
it was suggested that i create a new user which i did and i can logon with this new identity
it was suggested that i tried repair in mepis user assistant but my original logon name does not appear in the user list
however when i tried to create a user identity using that name, i was told i couldn't as it already existed
all help gratefully received

It may be a case of permissions.

As root do
#cd /home/username
#chown username .ICEauthority

thanx amani
when i google this problem there are hundreds of hits
[so it is not uncommon]
but no answers especially accessible ones
the linux community uses language which assumes a degree of familiarity but is largely incomprehensible to me - a real newbie
i've spent two days trying to sort this problem, read hundreds of posts, perused the real as well as the virtual and i don't have a clue as to how to go about solving it
presumably most of the people who have had this problem have resolved it
why can't i find out how?
bas

basically you need to change ownership of the hidden file .ICEauthority

# is the shell prompt

thank you for your response
you said -
As root do
#cd /home/username
#chown username .ICEauthority

assuming that you mean the lost username
the first line produced a negative response - this file does not exist
and the second line produced no response

you then said
basically you need to change ownership of the hidden file .ICEauthority
i have no idea what this means

thank you for your input
but you seem to have no idea what newbie means

You may have automatic updates enabled and something went wrong.

See the Mepis forums/file bug