help with KDE
 

Hi everyone. i recently intalled mandrake linux 9.0 on my pc and I love it to bits I really do. But it seems to die really easily. I use KDE as my GUI and when I was using it today, the KDE task manager decided to crash, so I left it for a while but nothing happened so I rebooted the computer. Now it wont work.

It begins to work, but then when it's loading KDE it brings up three error messages.


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There was an error setting up inter-process communications for KDE. The message returned but the system was:

Could not read network connection list.
//.DCOPserver_localhost__0

Please check that the 'dcopserver' program is running!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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The following instalation problem was detected while trying to start KDE

No write access to $HOME directory (/)

KDE unable to start
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Will not save configuration.

Configuration file "//.KDE/share/config/ksplashrc"
not writable

Configuration file "//.KDE/share/config/kdeglobals"
not writable

Please contact the system administrator
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



What can I do to fix this problem? I had work on there that I didn't have time to back up. I let it run all those diagnostic things on start up but I noticed at one point it said...


wrong fs type ,bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hda3, or too many mounted file sys

or something very close to this.

Any help is much appriciated.

Re: help with KDE
 

It's not a 'good' error message. Which partition is /dev/hda3? I Think it may be your /home (that matches the KDE errors you get).

The partition got corrupted. I'm wondering which filesystem type you have (probably ext2, but let's leave it for now).

You need to fix it. To do it, boot from your installation cd in rescue mode. You'll probably get a command-line. Run
fsck /dev/hda3
(or fsck.ext2 /dev/hda3)

thanks for the reply! Your an awesome person.


"Which partition is /dev/hda3?"
I have no idea.

I probably should have told you that I just recently got linux so I don't know much about linux, hell I don't know very much about windows... or computers for that matter.


"You need to fix it. To do it, boot from your installation cd in rescue mode. You'll probably get a command-line. Run
fsck /dev/hda3
(or fsck.ext2 /dev/hda3)"


I will try and fix it like you say. But, i used a downloaded 3 cd distribution and i have just checked the cd cases and irony strikes as disk 1 is missing. I'll try my best to find it but if I don't it looks like I will spend the next week finding another copy of the same distribution.

Unless there is another way?!

Since all but one of the errors comes from KDE I'm going to agree with Mara that's it's probable /home and that it's become corrupt. Can you login as root? Even though it's generally bad to start the gui as root, it's worth a try since root's home is not in /home. If so you might be able to read the /etc/fstab file and find outwhat hda3 is. You might also be able to navigate /home and try to backup any important files.

how do I start in root?

It depends on your bootloader. If you use lilo just type linux single at the bootloader screen. It might be whatever your label is instead of linux.

If you are using GRUB, use the following steps to boot into single-user mode:


If you have a GRUB password configured, type p and enter the password.

Select Red Hat Linux with the version of the kernel that you wish to boot and type e for edit. You will be presented with a list of items in the configuration file for the title you just selected.

Select the line that starts with kernel and type e to edit the line.

Go to the end of the line and type single as a separate word (press the [Spacebar] and then type single). Press [Enter] to exit edit mode.

Back at the GRUB screen, type b to boot into single user mode.

I don't think i am using either grub or lilo. When i boot it graphically lets me select which thingy to boot using the keyboard.

linux
failsafe
etc

I found my disk by the way!

I went into rescue mode but it didnt work. Using my instal CD is there any way to just reinstal my KDE coz it might just be that causing the problem. I can log on using some other GUI but it doesnt work properly. It brings up error messages about KDE even though im using a different GUI!

oops, sorry I also just noticed it is version 10.0, not 9.0 like i said earlier

There's not that big difference. To start as root do the following:
1) Wait for the system to boot (until the login screen)
2) Press ctrl+alt+f1
3) You should get a text mode login screen. Use 'root' as login and then the right password.
4) After logging in you should get a command prompt, something like
yourcomputer:~#
5) Type 'startx' and press Enter. You should then get graphical mode (probably KDE if it's set as default) when logged as root.
6) When you're in please post us your /etc/fstab

If you can't find your 1st installation cd, we should be able to go with the recovery from this place. But it's a good idea to review your /etc/fstab first to see if /dev/hda3 is really /home.