Hi, I'm currently using GNOME 2.4 on Slack 9.1, and have been running it fine for a while. I was trying to install something (gDesklets) which highlighted a problem with my GL libraries amongst other stuff, so I decided to use a normal /etc/X11/XF86Config file instead of the framebuffered (FBDEV) version and try to sort them out.

I ran xf86config, chose everything that is correct, then edited the file manually to point to the latest nvidia drivers for my card (GeForce4 MX440) as I have done many times before - I rebooted, and voila! GDM comes up in beloved 1600x1200.

Now my problem is, any account that was created before I made the change (including root) now cannot login to GDM. It comes up with an invalid username/password message. The passwords and logins are correct because I have created a new user account (which works), and once inside GNOME I can login as root using a nested window (Xnest) and I can su to root in a terminal.

I couldn't even do that before, so I deleted /tmp/.X0-lock and /tmp/.X20-lock which then allowed me to login using Xnest, but not into the main instance of GDM?

Is there a lock file that I am missing at all?

Thanks,

Just a guess: try removing the .Xauthority files, maybe they're rejected as remote logins.

What about if I actually removed /root/.gnome/, would that have any effect? I'm still quite new and it's hard to distinguish what is what half of the time!

Where are the .Xauthority files by the way?

/root is home for the superuser, so the /root/.gnome dir (as any /home/user/.gnome) contains the preferences for that user. I.e., gnome should start default preferences, but not hang. However if you deleted .gnome you should remove .gnome2* as well, so you can start from scratch.

The .Xauthority files are in users homes, but as all files beginning with '.' (ie hidden) they are not listed by ls unless you give the -A option.

So if I deleted .gnome/ and .gnome2/ from each affected users home dir (including root), that would essentially remove all gnome preferences for that user? I will still be able to boot into gnome though right? For example:

If I deleted /home/rasputin/.Xauthority, /home/rasputin/.gnome/, /home/rasputin/.gnome2/, then tried to login to gnome as rasputin, it would simply create my preferences from scratch again?

I know that .<file> are hidden files, ls -al is your friend

I don't mind having to configure gnome again for each user, I just want to be able to do it without a reinstall if possible!

Ahhhh, I'd set the keyboard to Lithuanian, and it has a different map for the number keys

there you go....

how'd you manage to set the keyboard in Lithuanian accidentally?

the reason I left Debian was because of X problems and errors compiling new GUI's (both GNOME & KDE) so I migrated to Slackware. But because I was so used to using Debian and the hundreds of times I ran through the xf86config setup, I kept pressing "46" for the keyboard map, when in Slackware UK keyboard is "81"...

It was confusing because all of the letters were mapped the same, but the numbers must have been different because the two accounts affected both had numbers in the password, where the test account I had created had a password simply of "login", and that worked.

Once I was inside GNOME (using the test account) I wondered why I could then open an Xnest and login as root from GDM again - and I realised, it's because at that point the default inside GNOME then went back to a UK keyboard, but the first instance of GDM was Lituanian.

We live and learn eh?