Hi everyone,
I am a linux newbie/wannabe, I have been running PClinuxOS2007 for about a year. I use the KDE gui, and know very little about linemode linux.

Last week I wanted to try to put in a package with the Synaptic package manager (which is what PClos uses), and endd up doing a LOT of changes, because each pre-req needed another pre-req....

The end result was that my machine would not reboot into a GUI.
When I booted I was left in tty1 at a login prompt. I could switch thru tty2-tty6, but no #7 existed.

When I would try startx i could see a flash of what looked like the task bar at the bottom of the screen, but then it went dark except for the upper left corner saying "Could not start kdeinit. check your configuration".

Well, I checked till the cows came home, and (using this live-cd of PClos2009) I searched the Internet (including LQ.org), but found nothing that helped.

I did check that doing X started screen 7, with the black and white X mouse pointer. but no window manager.

Today I downloaded the kdebase-3.5.10 rpm for pclos2007, and tried to fix things by doing rpm -ev kdebase followed by rpm -iv kdebase (the full name of the rpm file).

The GUI still wont come up, but now it is a bit different: I get a big white rectangular flash in the middle of the screen, where I used to see the menu of users who can login. And I do not get the kdeinit message. So, it looks like kde startup is moved a bit farther along.

I hope someone can help me get KDE up and running again. Reinstalling EVERYTHING is what I would do in that 'other' system, I really hope I don't need to go through that with linux too.

Thanks VERY much for any help!
Shimon


P.S. I tried to include as much relevant description as I could remember, but feel free to ask any necessary questions.

Heh, you did all but the simplest thing, check the log files

I don't know the exact kde logfile, but try
The kde log should be simple to spot. Also try looking at the X log. You'll just need the tail command to read the last 10 lines and spot the problem.

James,
I definitely *wanted* to check kde logs, but could not figure out where/what to look at.

OK, in /var/logs the relevant files seem to be Xorg.0.log and kdm.log .
Running tail did not seem especially useful in either case:

[root@localhost /]# tail -v /var/log/kdm.log
==> /var/log/kdm.log <==
(**) RADEON(0): Memory map updated.
(**) RADEON(0): Programming CRTC1, offset: 0x00000000
(**) RADEON(0): Wrote: 0x00000006 0x00030047 0x00000000 (0x0000a700)
(**) RADEON(0): Wrote: rd=6, fd=71, pd=3
(**) RADEON(0): Disposing accel...
(**) RADEON(0): Disposing cusor info
(**) RADEON(0): Disposing DGA
(**) RADEON(0): Unmapping memory
(**) RADEON(0): RADEONDRICloseScreen
krootimage: cannot connect to X server :0
[root@localhost /]# tail -v /var/log/Xorg.0.log
==> /var/log/Xorg.0.log <==
(**) RADEON(0): Wrote: 0x0000000c 0x00030065 0x00000000 (0x0000a700)
(**) RADEON(0): Wrote: rd=12, fd=101, pd=3
(**) RADEON(0): Disposing accel...
(**) RADEON(0): Disposing cusor info
(**) RADEON(0): Disposing DGA
(**) RADEON(0): Unmapping memory
(**) RADEON(0): RADEONDRICloseScreen
(II) RADEON(0): [drm] removed 1 reserved context for kernel
(II) RADEON(0): [drm] unmapping 8192 bytes of SAREA 0xf0bc0000 at 0xb7b31000
FreeFontPath: FPE "/usr/share/fonts/misc:unscaled" refcount is 2, should be 1; fixing.
[root@localhost /]#


I now see that there is some sort of error higher up in the file, so here is a bigger tail:
[root@localhost log]# tail -vn 50 /var/log/kdm.log
==> /var/log/kdm.log <==
(**) RADEON(0): Updating display base addresses...
(**) RADEON(0): Memory map updated.
(**) RADEON(0): Programming CRTC1, offset: 0x00000000
(**) RADEON(0): Wrote: 0x0000000c 0x000200a8 0x00000000 (0x0000a700)
(**) RADEON(0): Wrote: rd=12, fd=168, pd=2
(**) RADEON(0): GRPH_BUFFER_CNTL from 20047c7c to 200d5c5c
(**) RADEON(0): RADEONSaveScreen(0)
(**) RADEON(0): Setting up initial surfaces
(**) RADEON(0): Initializing fb layer
(**) RADEON(0): Setting up accel memmap
(**) RADEON(0): Initializing backing store
(**) RADEON(0): DRI Finishing init !
(**) RADEON(0): EngineRestore (32/32)
(**) RADEON(0): GRPH_BUFFER_CNTL from 20047c7c to 200d5c5c
(**) RADEON(0): Setting up final surfaces
(**) RADEON(0): Initializing Acceleration
(**) RADEON(0): EngineInit (32/32)
(**) RADEON(0): Pitch for acceleration = 128
(**) RADEON(0): EngineRestore (32/32)
(**) RADEON(0): Initializing DPMS
(**) RADEON(0): Initializing Cursor
(**) RADEON(0): Initializing color map
(**) RADEON(0): Initializing DGA
(**) RADEON(0): Initializing Xv
(**) RADEON(0): RADEONScreenInit finished
(**) RADEON(0): RADEONSaveScreen(2)
/usr/bin/kdm_greet: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/libXft.so.2: undefined symbol: FT_Library_SetLcdFilter
(**) RADEON(0): RADEONCloseScreen
(**) RADEON(0): RADEONDRIStop
(**) RADEON(0): EngineRestore (32/32)
(**) RADEON(0): RADEONDisplayPowerManagementSet(0,0x0)
(**) RADEON(0): RADEONRestore
(**) RADEON(0): RADEONRestoreMode()
(**) RADEON(0): RADEONRestoreMode(0x823a318)
(**) RADEON(0): RADEONRestoreMemMapRegisters() :
(**) RADEON(0): MC_FB_LOCATION : 0x1fff0000
(**) RADEON(0): MC_AGP_LOCATION : 0x27ff2000
(**) RADEON(0): Map Changed ! Applying ...
(**) RADEON(0): Map applied, resetting engine ...
(**) RADEON(0): Updating display base addresses...
(**) RADEON(0): Memory map updated.
(**) RADEON(0): Programming CRTC1, offset: 0x00000000
(**) RADEON(0): Wrote: 0x00000006 0x00030047 0x00000000 (0x0000a700)
(**) RADEON(0): Wrote: rd=6, fd=71, pd=3
(**) RADEON(0): Disposing accel...
(**) RADEON(0): Disposing cusor info
(**) RADEON(0): Disposing DGA
(**) RADEON(0): Unmapping memory
(**) RADEON(0): RADEONDRICloseScreen
krootimage: cannot connect to X server :0
[root@localhost log]#

I hope that means something to someone!

Thanks!!
Shimon

I found *something* in google, but I have no idea what it says.

This was at
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ft/+bug/145244

>>>

I've just dealt with a user reporting this problem in Hardy i386. As soon as gdm tried to start gdmgreeter the log-in screen went 'mad' in his words. I connected remotely via ssh and stopped the gdm process. libcairo was reporting symbol_not_found for FT_Library_SetLcdFilter.

ldd /usr/lib/libcairo.so.2

revealed that it was linked against /usr/local/lib/libfreetype.so.6

I discovered that recently the user had been trying to build an application of some sort, which had included libfreetype2. When it had been built it had installed to /usr/local/lib/ and then ldconfig had regenerated the dynamic module cache and it took preference to the system-installed version in /usr/lib/.

The version in /usr/local/lib/ was much older than the version in /usr/lib/ and didn't include the FT_Library_SetLcdFilter() function.

The fix was to remove the libfreetype libraries and sym-links from /usr/local/lib/ and to regenerate the linker cache using:

sudo ldconfig

<<<

It looks a lot like my problem, but it's totally chinese to me.
Can anyone translate it, and tell me what I should actually DO
in order to get my kde to start up?

Thanks!!
Shimon

Hi shimonl
I thought about how to help you with your problem, but I now think it would be better for you to reinstall, because it is unclear what you tried to do since the problem began, and it seems to me that your installation could be messed up now. And as you say you "know very little about linemode linux" it seems difficult to lead you in this direction, from the point you are now with your installation.
Before reinstalling, do a backup of all the files you don't want to lose, and keep the backup on an external media, not on the disk with the active system.
After the re-installation, go to the stage concerning the origin of the problem, ie
"Last week I wanted to try to put in a package with the Synaptic package manager (which is what PClos uses), and endd up doing a LOT of changes, because each pre-req needed another pre-req....".

And re-post, to precise what exactly you want to do from there, and the exact messages which result from the commands you launch. Post before beginning the operation, or note everything you do and the resulting exact messages.
Have good courage.

Pclinux is a easy and good distro.
There is how ever one think you should do keep you're system updated to keep it stable.
As you notice there are alway a lot of updates