ReInstall and formatting yet the same problem???
 

I have mdk 10.0 CE installed, where /root is on a partition, /home on another partition and swap obviously on another.

so after i messed up my installed version somehow and couldn't get it back cause i couldn't get x to start up, i decided that i should just reinstall since all my settings in /home would still be there.
After reinstallation firstly i couldn't get KDE up cause i didn't have rights to the home folders. So i loged in as root and gave myself rights to the folders, and then that worked, all my settings were there except my links on kicker were not working, stuff like mozilla and ximian was stuffed and just wouldn't open?

I also cant start up gnome, after logging in it just goes back to the login page again.

So after all this i re installed again cause i thought I didn't format the drive during installation. No luck, i have all the same problems, so I really don't have a clue why this is happening, should't a format and reinstallation be okay and produce a clean problem free linux. Seeing that my home is on a totally different partition?

thanks ahead of time.

Change to Redhat or Fedora that works, I also had many such problems with MDK, now for more than one year with Redhat and Fedora NO PROBLEMS.
You can re-install as many times as you like.

Change to Redhat or Fedora that works, I also had many such problems with MDK, now for more than one year with Redhat and Fedora NO PROBLEMS.
You can re-install as many times as you like.

Who is partitioning?
 

Before you install Fedora, tell me who is partitioning your hard disk while installation. I had gizillion issues with fedora (not basic level issues though) and moved to SuSE months ago.

In Fedora or SuSE, installation gives option to partition your hard disk automatically or manually. manual partitioning is complicated in most of the linux distros if you are not familiar with linux filesystem. The simplest way is to accept the automatic partitioning. It never fails. Though it makes 5/6 partitions in your hard disk, I guess its how Linux likes it to be.

If you are re-installing MDK, select automatic partitioning. It may solve this issue. Don't worry about having everything on /dev/hda1 or /dev/hda2. My /dev/hda6 is mounted by / and /dev/hda7 is by swap. It works flawlessly.

Hope that helps. Keep up the effort.

And if you REALLY want to move on from MDK, try SuSE 9.1, it barely came out last week and has Kernel 2.6 and KDE 3.2 built in. And for ease of use, its just AWESOME!!!

well, i suppose i could move to another distro but, but more importantly to me is to find out what the problem is before considering that.
As my aim in using Linux is to learn as much about it as possible, i will first try to find out what the problem is.

Do you thinik i could boot to windows( i have a dual boot), format the /root drive there , and then re install?

or could there be some files in /home that are somehow being loaded in boot, or something weird like that?

I tried SuSE and I was impressed, it works really well, only one issue it does not have a Chinese input system, but for you guy's who are not using Asian input, I 100% agree with SuSE, but I'm also stuck with Redhat as I was using Redhat from the very beginning, so I also consider the Manual partition very easy, but perhaps you are right for some it is complicated, but I think if you are re-installing it is bettr to use the Manual Partition, yo can not go wrong..

Maybe i think my question now is actually:
" are there basic config files that get stored in your /home folders?"
Files that are actually needed to get you to log in and run window managers and perhaps stuff to do with the X-window system?

Hi Spedsta,

I can guarantee you that the home partition is always 100% intact after re-install, unless you selected to format it, if not then something else had gone wrong.
Did you install MDK 10 on top of a previous version of MDK ?

i installed over exactly the same os as what i was installing, i did not format my /home folder, but did format the /root folder. still after installation i come up with problems, even trying to launch kde from failsafe
Could it be perhaps me not typing my users name incorrectly?Although that almost 100% percent won't be the case.

No that is not the case with the user name.

Do you have another hard disk in the system ?

Normally you need three partitions only

one which is " / " and " usr " those two always need to be formated when installing or re-installing , then you need " home " of cause also " swap "

I suggest you back up your information of you home directory, but not the hidden files or the desktop must not be backed up.

Then do a complete new install and this time format the home partition, when the system is up and runing, then copy your information from the backed up home directory to the new home directory, but remember not to copy the hidden files or the desktop, thet will get you up and running again.

Yes that was my next option. to back up my files and then reinstall and format my /home as well.

I am a newbie( hence this is where i post) but to my knowledge, when root is formatted there should be nothing to hinder a reinstall, or are there other things to consider?

for example, how come i can't get X up after booting into failsafe.this after a fresh installation.

surely a new installation should by default do that?

When you format your " / " & " usr " Partition normally that is it, but your hard disk can have something wrong on the boot sector like an old Windows Installation have been known to cause some problems, so if I was you I would erase the boot sector & partition table on the hard disk and start again, you will of cause need to download the tools for your hard disk to do this. Then when you do a graphicial install X would be runing.
So when you do a new install and remember if you do this the hard disk is completely erased and all data lost, you should cerate three partitions: " / " 2GB - " usr " 4GB - " home " what is left of the hard disk space, and of cause " swap " about 800 MB depending your RAM. Now it works for sure if you have followed the simple installation instructions correctly.