Hi all,

I need to know if anyone has got any ideas about what has happened to my system I believe the problem to be with the rc.local file after editing this file trying to start the CUPS server automatically there. The file now looks like this

#
# ****info****
#

cupsd –f

I think this is the problem as it was the last thing I edited on the system.

The last thing on the screen to be seen at boot is

Starting GPM: /usr/sbin/gpm –m /dev/mouse –t ps2

I have looked in the XF86Config file and the mouse is the last entry.

The only way as a newbie to Linux to try and resolve the problem has been to start the system and then to interrupt the fs checking routine after doing a force shutdown. (Please advise me on how to do this the correct way at a system hang :-> I have tried halt etc etc) I can get to a command line but the fs in read only!! So editing but not storing the changes to rc.local is not a possibility. Can I get to a command prompt from my boot disk??

Along with this I have been editing the file /etc/lilo.conf to allow the scsi emulation. I have done this successfully and a feature I found useful was to allow me to type lilo and see if there was any errors safeguarding a problematic boot up.

Any comments, ideas much appreciated. Thanks for your time,

Rob

- hold alt+sysRq key and then:

r,s,e,i,u,b

pause on the e as this kills all processes, u unmounts and b reboots.

- Give your OS as rc.local does different things. Mine's Gentoo.

- check /dev/mouse exists

- so I take it ide-scsi is working ok?

Thanks I will give it a go.

whenever a fs is readonly and u need to write to it (and its possible) just type
mount -o remount,rw *
were the * with the device or were its mounted