Well, it'll almost be like installing your system anew :-]

I think it will work, but verifying files from your rpm database should go first, because that would give you means to check all packages you think are ok, actually are ok (as seen by the database) and give you a list of packages you'll need to install/update.

Ok, i'll verify the RPMs and then try it.

This isn't going to erase any of my settings/files/whatever, is it?

I know it'll overwrite the programs i'm using the RPMs to reinstall, but it won't touch stuff i've added from source/RPMs not on the CD/with Wine, will it?

Hmm.... I reinstalled all the Gnome RPMs, and now if I login as root and type 'startx' XFree starts correctly.

However, if I type "su - andrew" in a console, then it says "unable to open session". If I type "su - andrew" in a console opened in the GUI it says "Segmentation fault", which is the error I got when this all started.
If I try to login at the initial console login screen (The login screen that comes up when your computer starts at run level 3) it says something about a shell, and then logs me back out and erases whatever it said about a shell.

I haven't checked to see if the GUI starts correctly with the computer, because wget is downloading RH9 CDs 2 and 3 and I don't want to interrupt it.

Do you think I need to reinstall some RPMs to get su to work, and if you do which ones are they? I tried installing the sudo RPM again, but that didn't work.

I think it's about time you get some tenacity award :-]

For sudo to work I think you better check the dependencies:
rpm -q -R sudo: /etc/pam.d/system-auth /bin/sh ld-linux.so.2
libcrypt.so.1 libc.so.6 libdl.so.2 libpam.so.0 libc.so.6
That's the PAM, Bash and Glibc2 rpms. Verify 'em.

lol, i'm determined not to format my hard drive, since I have a ton of stuff on it that I don't have the time to replace.

According to RPM none of those packages are installed, but I know that atleast some of them are.
I tried /bin/sh and that works fine, and i'd think the auth one's would be fine since I can login as root, just not as andrew.
Any ideas?
Also, I noticed there were some more glibc RPMs on the second CD (The 3rd hasn't finished yet), so i'll try installing them. Hopefully that'll do it.


[Edit] Actually I checked and according to RPM nothing is installed, so the database is probably messed up. I tried to rebuild it, but I got an error. So whatever's messing the other stuff up is probably messing the RPM database's rebuilding up too. [Edit]

Reinstalling the glibc RPMs didn't help, I guess i'll just have to reinstall all the RPMs and hope that works.

Is there anything else that I could try, before I do a rpm -ivh *.rpm --force in a directory with the RPMs from all three CDs?

Uhh. I don't think it's wise to install *all* the rpms you can find.
I think you should focus on repairing the rpm database first. Are there any files in /var/lib/rpm that start with underscores? If you remove then before trying to rebuild the rpm database you might have a chance. Also use the double "-v" flag and pipe all the output to a log, makes it easier to check out.

If rebuilding didn't work then at least you got an idea where it fails. In the past I had such a problem, what I did was use "--justdb" to remove the entry from the db then reinstall those rpms to fix it.

If rebuilding works focus on verifying the existing rpms, then you possibly got a better basis for trying to select and refresh necessary base binaries/lib rpms first.

Ok, i'm rebuilding the database now.
What do you mean by the double v flag? rpm -vv..?

[Edit] Ohhh, do rpm --rebuilddb -vv, it's running the command now. There were 3 files starting with __ in the rpm directory, I deleted them and hopefully that will help. [Edit]

Ok, I did that, reinstalled all the RPMs that I needed to, and it still has the same problem.

I noticed that root's GUI was Gnome, and root's GUI works. Isn't the initial login screen done by KDE? That might explain why root can start X but the computer can't.

I *could* just use the computer like this.. I really don't like being root, but if I can't fix it..
Any idea when the next RH beta will be out? Installing it would probably fix all this. Or atleast I hope it would.

Ok, I did that, reinstalled all the RPMs that I needed to, and it still has the same problem.
Damn. That's bad.

Any idea when the next RH beta will be out? Installing it would probably fix all this. Or atleast I hope it would.
Not to discredit all your efforts and all the time you put into this, but you must agree with me that by now your box is in the twilight zone somewhere past "repairable" and sliding fast towards being totally "untrustworthy". Segfaults can have different causes and we don't know how to fix this w/o having the rpm database (an Aide, Samhain or tripwire database would be even better), permissions? b0rken binaries? missing libraries?.

Running everything as root *will* get you into trouble no matter what you do, and by now I would advice you to backup your configs in /etc and user files in /home and reinstall. I know, it sounds bad, but after you're done you got a system you can trust and work with.

I'm sorry for you, but I think it is the best solution.

Tripwire database?
Excuse me, i'm going to go shoot myself for not checking root's mail and forgetting I had one.
I'll check that and try reinstalling those files, if that doesn't work i'll just backup and reinstall.
Thanks for all your help.

I was just able to read the message it flashes up when I try to login as andrew, and I think it's the problem.. it was something like "login: no shell: permission denied".

/bin/bash is set as my login shell, what are the correct permissions for /bin/bash?