HI
I recently installed a newer version of XFree86, when i rebooted, it went strate into an xwindows sesion, with 3 terminals open in it. I wanted it to start in KDE so i loaded it usin startkde.
I then changed the settins in kde do it would load instead and also so that it wouldn't auto login.

Now when i restart it goes to the graphical login, i put in my password etc and click login, the screen goes dark for a second, then i'm back at the same graphical login screen
It doesn't work when i login as root either.
I can get to a text login screen using cntrl alt F1, but cand get into kde coz the Xserver is already running.
I'm using Mandrake 8.1 and now XFree86 4.2.1

Any help would be gratly appreciated.

Cheers

Try setting runlevel 3 in the /etc/fstab file - that got me onto the command line in stead of into the endless gui/login loop i was in and you sound like you're in.

To edit the fstab file you might need to start your Linux with the boot CD-Rom and type rescue at the prompt before hitting enter.

This will start Linux in a very basic mode allowing you to explore your system settings etc.

After editing the fstab reboot your machine without the CD-Rom in your drive.

Once you got the regular command line of your box up and running again you might just be able to get a clue of whats happening :-)

See the post caught in the loop for more info on my very similar boot loop problem.

BTW I know I'm using Red Hat! But changing the runlevel setting in your fstab should enable you to get out of the loop nevertheless, you can then work from there....

uh...runlevel isn't in fstab. Isn't in init.d or something? fstab is for mount points and run level has nothing to do with mount points.

/etc/inittab (There you change your runlevel settnigs)

You're right - half asleep here - the trick is setting runlevel 3 in the /etc/initab

# Default runlevel. The runlevels used by RHS are:
# 0 - halt (Do NOT set initdefault to this)
# 1 - Single user mode
# 2 - Multiuser, without NFS (The same as 3, if you do not have networking)
# 3 - Full multiuser mode
# 4 - unused
# 5 - X11
# 6 - reboot (Do NOT set initdefault to this)
#
id:3:initdefault:

Good catch - TY very much!!!!!!!!!