failed to initalize HAL! Acer Aspire
 

hey - new to Linux and not really a computer pro - so PLEASE HELP!

I have had my acer aspire for a few months - using linux. I am currently in china doing volunteer work and my laptop is my sole link to the outside world!

so last night the screen froze on me as it does probably once a week - so i powered down. when i restarted -internal error message
-failed to intialize hal -displayed

I have looked on many forums - which indicate usb ports/ drives - which i have NONE attached - others suggest looking in etc folder for rc2.d S12 -but it is not there or in rc3.d

I have tryed entering command to restart in terminal - not really sure how this works
so i open Alt F2 and type command - click run in terminal and i just get a blank screen!!!!!!!!!!

Will i loose all my files?? can i fix this byself????

Though HAL is somewhat important, I see no reason why your machine would not boot to at least moderate usability. It's somewhat depressing that your machine freezes every few hours, but when you hold down the power button, you shut off the machine in an unpleasant and somewhat unsafe way. This may have damaged the filesystem, or more easily fixable there may be some files HAL left in it's last session that it doesn't want to start because of. I'll look around to see what I can do. From the sound of things you have a sad damaged laptop with an even sadder install of Linux. What distribution do you use? Ubuntu? Debian?

hey thanks for quick message
Distribution ?? i'm sorry i'm so stupid - i dont even know!! how can i find out?

jennymor1

For knowing the Linux distribution:
Type the following on your terminal and post the output here:
Mind the spaces in below code

by terminal - you mean alt F2 - run program - run in terminal??

i tried that and nothing happened??

My desktop works, i can view my files - but NO

INTERNET
USB DRIVES
MUSIC
VIDEOS

just wont work
and i cant even connect a usb to back up all the files i can see - so frustrating

oh i think i have found it in system

Linpus linux lite v1.0 13. E

It's an Aspire One??? Waaw. I have one of those, it came with XP, but I had good fun torturing and then murdering the copy of XP. I then put Fedora Linux on it, and have been happy with it since. I know many people have trouble with them, but mine has been OK. The speakers are too close to the hard disk so I have to use head phones, but everything else is fine. Anyway, back to the issue. I have heard bad things about Linpus Linux, but luckily you are not doomed to use this distribution. Hey, since I am too lazy, can someone walk this noob through backing up his stuff and installing some distro with UNetbootin?

If you treat everyone like this, I'm sure your new forum will be GREAT! Good luck with that....

It was intended as a funny way to say "It's too long for me to type".

I don't recall if Linpus grants the default user sudo privileges (my Aspire One runs the latest Fedora and Ubuntu), but if so, then something like in a terminal window might provide useful data. The s26 prefix on haldaemon is taken from my Fedora installation, you may need to look in /etc/rc5.d to find the correct filename