I'm a Mandrake 8.2 user. After a crash of the X-windows server, I lost my graphical login.
I can still run KDE from a command-line login, but the graphical login won't load on boot.

I tried setting it to launch to graphical login in Mandrake's Control Center. I tried setting it in the KDM settings pannel,... nothing worked.

I checked out the /etc/inittab file and the id:5:initdefault setting is right.

I can't launch kdm from a root login, nor can I launch xdm from a root login. However, I can launch gfm from a root login...

startkde will produce errors regarding missing screens,...

startX works and I can get into KDE that way...

Sometimes the X server won't start because of an error regarding the x font server,...

Does anyone have any ideas???

Something of that sort happened to me with Redhat. Hardreboot, came back on and it would only let me login with the text prompt. Quite annoying for me...I ended up just reinstalling Linux over again. I think something did get damaged because of the reboot, so perhaps the only solution is to reinstall...

zLiNuXz

Although I don't like the idea of "reinstalling" your OS, it sounds too much like a Windows tech support answer, it may be the easiest fix.
But since there are some awesome Linux Guru's on here, maybe if you post the actual error messages, they can help you fix it instead of reinstalling.

Have you tried just reinstalling XFree86 from your distro's CD?

I'm using reiserfs so, I seriously doubt it was the reboot that did it. I think it more likely that the source of the crash was the same thing that corrupted the data. I'm sure there is a way to fix it without doing a full reinstall, I'm just wonderin what it is.

like MasterC said, post the error message you get from X when it refuses to come on.
The thing that I remember is that, there is no error message for the gui login not coming on...it was just weird like that when it happened to me. It just stopped coming up. No error no message.

Try to do xf86config and configure your xserver with that. I had the same thing happening because of a misconfiguration.
Is your graphics card recognised automaticly or do you have to set it up yourself.

I got the following error messages in the [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[F12] screen (minus my local host information):

I don't know if this wil help.

My graphics set-up is not auto-recognized by Linux/Mandrake, I have to manually install my drivers and edit the XF86Config-4 file...
I have tried running mandrake's XFdrake, but it didn't reset the graphcial login...

I had something around that line when i fiddled around with my xconfig for graphics. Kdm wouldn't work xdm wouldn't work. Heck - the original xf86config file wouldn't work either. Had to reconfigure with xf86config then it was ok again.

I tried using xf86config, and it was no help. The kdm/xdm login is still f'd...

I notice that when I am accessing the X-windows system, I'm not in the default terminal 7, but in terminal 9. Does anyone know how to unlock a terminal that has been locked by the OS in a crash.

quote:
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Cannot open control file /usr/share/config/kdm/Xaccess, No XDMCP request will be granted.

Cannot access servers file /usr/share/config/kdm/Xservers

can't lock pid file /var/run/xdm.pid, another xdm is running.


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Check to see if another xdm is running. If it is, then kill it and delete the /var/run/xdm.pid file. Try startx again.

If there isn't an xdm running, delete the /var/run/xdm.pid file and try startx.

Thanks, I'll try that.

I think that is on the right track, since when I linked to the other files, it ran but with lots of problems (no access to actual X sessions, nor the settings appearing to be keeping with the changes I had made in the login manager...)

Well,

That advice didn't work, but it got me closer. I tried killing kdm, and it kept re-spawning. So I changed the name of the executable. That has now caused X-windows to spawn gdm on boot-up (I prefer kdm/xdm, but this will do as a temporary fix).

Apparently, when the window login managers spawn, they are forced to respawn unless they launch. Now, what I have is a situation where gdm launches after kdm fails to load. Before, kdm was launching, and in the process could not find the necessary files in the /usr/share/config/kdm directory (Xservers and Xaccess). Copying them from the /etc/X11/kdm directory or linking them from there was no good as I got a login screen but it failed to launch the session upon login and then respawned,...

I need to find out 2 things;

1) Why did my OS delete or otherwise shred the contents of /usr/share/config/kdm ???

2) How do I restore the necessary files to that subdirectory???