I really don't know how to diagnose this problem, so I turn here for help to get me moving in the correct direction...

I run Debian Unstable on a shitty Sony Vaio PCG-FX215 (800 mhz, 256 mb). I've been running Debian for...oh...8 or 9 months with no major problems whatsoever.

(I apologize, this might be a very bad recollection of the problem...I wasn't paying attention at the time).

About a week ago I ran apt-get dist-upgrade. The upgrade was huge, apparently Gnome or KDE just released something, so I left it. Next morning, I saw it had finished with an error, but I was in a hurry to do something else, so I didn't pay attention (I thought it was one of those 'package could not be verified' errors or something). Apparently it never finished installing, just unpacking. I rebooted because my computer was going slow as sin.

When it reboots, it tells me there's an error on my / filesystem that cannot be fixed automatically. Then it boots normally and loads X just fine. I get to the KDE welcome screen and attempt to login. I've been using XFCE lately, so I tried that first. It goes to a blank screen first, then a KDE-style 'busy' curser, then lands me back at the welcome screen. Same thing doing, no matter what windows manager I try. I can, however, login to the console.

So, my brother logged in remotely and finished running the upgrade. That completed, but didn't help anything.

So then I burned an RIP CD and booted from that, ran e2fsck and fixed my root filesystem. It now seems to be happy, says the root filesystem is clean on boot up.

Still getting the same problem.

I have no idea where to start, even. Since I don't know where the problem is, I cannot figure out what error logs to even look at. Let me know and I will be more than happy to post them!

Thanks,

Sydney

Have you tried logging in as root?

Check your /var/log/Xorg.0.log for any X errors.

I actually did try logging in as root, but apparently I have KDE configured to not allow me? (It told me 'root logins not allowed'.)

So I checked the output of Xorg.0.log. Nothing remotely resembling an error anywhere. (I'd post it, but it's 17 pages.) I checked the kdm log (which is the default display manger) on my brother's suggestion, but also no sign of an error.

My brother thinks I corrupted some file while playing around with different display managers, but I never messed with anything manually...just apt-get installed fluxbox, windowsmaker, and xfce, then chose them from the KDM login screen under 'session type' so I don't know how I did that.

What else should I check? Should I attempt to uninstall and reinstall X?