Ubuntu 9.10 cannot log in
 

Dear all,
I am currently using ubuntu 9.10.My problem is that I accidentally change the log in from requesting user name and password to another type of log in where password is not requested not knowing that I am in for a big problem.Now when I start my pc,the below errors will appear:

Error:Could not update ICEAuthority file /home/jq/.ICEAuthority
Error:There is a problem with the configuration server (/usr/lib/libgconf 2-4/gconf-sanity-check 2 exited with status 256)

Nautilus could not create the following required folders:/home/jq/desktop,/home/jq/.nautilus
Before running Nautilus,please create these folders,or set permissions such as Nautilus can create them.

What I did is Go System,Adminstration,Login Screen, Change "Show the screen for choosing who will log in" to "Log in as jq automatically" with the "Allow 10 seconds for anyone else to log in first" uncheck.

And when I restart my system,the above error appears and I am unable to log in to use my pc.I have important docs in it which I want to use but then I can't log in.

Anyone with a solution,please help.

Thanks
GJQ

You can log in to command line environment by switching to a text console. When the graphical login screen shows up, press CTRL+ALT+F1 (usually F1 through F6 are text consoles) and you should see a text login (note: when typing password, nothing is printed on screen, i.e. no asterisks). Once in, make sure that the permissions on the mentioned files are all right (for example the ICEAuthority should be owned by you and have permissions 'rw' for you, nothing for others). You can list them using for example
Make sure that their owner is you, i.e. "jq" in this case (I take it that your username is "jq"). If you are fine with being owner of all the files inside your home directory (usually this is the case), you can recursively change the owner of all those files using
provided that "jq" is your username. If there are files not owned by you, you probably need root privileges (or whoever owns the files, but root would be handy here) to do this. On Ubuntu, use
and when prompted, type in your (user) password. Then hit CTRL+ALT+F7 and see if it helped. If you need to change read/write/execute permissions, use chmod (but WITH CARE), for example
to make sure you yourself have read and write permissions on the file, or
to remove all permissions (read, write, execute) from others (g for group, o for other users).

You may also try to remove (you should rename the files rather than remove directly, so you can revert if it does not work) the file(s) and see if they are recreated as they should. But try to change the permissions first..

Remember to be careful with the commands, especially with move (mv) and remove (rm) commands because it's very easy to do damage with them with a small typo or unintentional hitting of "Enter". Especially if you use wildcards.