Hi. I have just installed mandrake 9.1.The first place I went was to KDE.When I got there man I loved it.After I shut down and looked at the other desktops (EXP Gnome) I could not get in to Gnome.Thought I would log back into KDE and it frozze.So I did a reboot and nothing,It will lock up on initializing system services.If I reboot and force system integrity check it will boot into KDE.I am very new to linux and I want to learn. please help.

Do you remember if you chose to use an ext2 filesystem for your / partition, or an ext3 or ReiserFS one?

Do you mean after the integrity check it automatically logs you in to KDE? As root? Did you have any autologin enabled before? (Bad idea btw)

What were you doing just before it froze?

Try not to hard-reboot. If nothings seems to be responding press Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to restart the X server. If that still has problems, try Ctrl+Alt+F1 and log in as root, then run reboot.

Not sure what you mean about ext2,ext3 or reiserFS.I don't have autologin on.
I was doing nothing when it froze just tried to get into KDE. I put my user name in and password
It will try to start KDE gets to initializing system services.Then it sits there.Then screen goes blue with a clock as a cursor.
There I have to do a (ctrl-alt-Bspace).and it brings me back to the log in screen.I cannot log into(KDE,Gnome).
I can however log into windowmaker,iceWM,failsafe and default.where I can do a halt.Then shut down.Then I can turn the PC back on.
That is where I have to force system integrity check.
If I hold my mouth right and sit real still it might work.

I just want to know why sometimes it will let me in to KDE,sometimes it won't.


Sorry I am such a noob but I want to learn so bad.Please help.

About the time it does a system integrity check, look for a mention of ext2 or ext3, or one of those other filesystems.
How did you partition the drive when you installed Mandrake? Via the installer, or something like Partition Magic beforehand?

I think that if you have a journalised filesystem it might prevent your problem, but something like ext2 doesnt have a journal and so finds it harder to recover from bad shutdowns.
Did you at any time hard-reboot?

How did you obtain Mdk9.1? Did you download the cds? If so did you checksum them before and after burning?

Thank you for helping me you are so kind.I got mandrake 9.1 from mandrakes FTP site.I did a checksume and it was ok when i burned the ISO.I should tell you that this is a standalone Linux box.Just linuxOS.I looked for what you said ext2,ext3 or reiserFS but didn't see anything that looked like that.SORRY no sure what I'm looking for.I'm shooting and looking in the dark.

1 more note yes I have done HARD BOOT more then 1 time.

Journalised filesystem ?

A journalling filesystem is one that keeps a journal of file activity separately from files being written to. If a power interruption, for example, prevents the system writing data to a file as it would during a normal shutdown, then on re-boot, if any filesystem corruption is found, the journal is accessed to find what needs to be written to fix the corruption. It results in a very stable, fault-tolerant filesystem. As far as journalling filesystems go, Win9x and ext2 are not, and NTFS, ext3 and reiserfs are journalling filesystems (there are others, btw).

Ok, so if you're install was error free, then I think the problem may be with left lock files in KDE from the hard-reboots. From my experience a journalised filesystem would help remove these and any other residue from incomplete logouts.

Try deleting your ~/.kde directory in your user account from another window manager. If you cant use Konqueror (KDE File Browser) or Nautilus (GNOME File Browser), then man rm to learn the command to delete ~/.kde and all in it. I think you want rm --force --recursive ~/.kde

KDE will restore default files when you next log in to it. Gnome has a few more hidden directories (~/.gnome*) so KDE should be easier to fix.

Thank you Thank you Thank you That did the trick.Everything is working just fine.BUT my graphics are weird now when a window is open there is some lines coming off the edge of the window ?
I fix it sorry had my res set to high thanx again for all the help

You fixed that problem too? Cool

Another Q...
I have ext2 can I convert to ext 3?

I used partition magic 8 within xp for format my linux part. Can I use it to convert the partition to ext3 also?

Thanks

You can, but it's best to use the latest stable linux kernel rather than a 3rd party app. Check if you have the latest kernel that Mdk supply, 2.4.21-0.25mdk was released recently, and I remember a previous release was to fix some filesystem support.

Back up your important configuration and personal files first, and then either use the MCC/DiskDrake app to change the partition, or upgrade the kernel and then do it.

There is a chance upgrading the kernel could go wrong and force you to spend a few mins restoring the old one off the cd before you can properly boot into Mdk again.

The best idea if possible is to format and reinstall Mandrake, this time picking ext3, and then use your backed-up update packages to ensure you have all the latest bugfixes. If you dont have any update packages you can get them from a number of ftp sites listed with the releases. Seems the MandrakeSecure.net site is timing out for me atm.