also, try starting IceWM with
startx /usr/X11R6/bin/starticewm

In 9.1 this still worked after upgrading X. It starts IceWM which kinda looks and feels like win95.

i just tried what u told me on failsafe mode. I started init 3 then tried startx under normal user. When I did that, X loaded (which looks very bad in quality but that's normal) with a few terminal windows open there too, and that's it. Nothing else appearing on screen (obviously, since this is just X, not KDE or anything like that). When I tied to go back to the command line (ctrl-alt-f1), I didn't have a prompt since X was running on the background, so I pressed control-C to stop it and go back to the prompt.

Here's my dmesg in case it's pertinent:

Linux version 2.6.0 (root@graham-955-469) (gcc version 3.3.1 (Mandrake Linux 9.2 3.3.1-2mdk)) #7 Wed Jan 14 22:33:36 BRST 2004
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009fc00 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000000009fc00 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000001fff0000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000001fff0000 - 000000001fff8000 (ACPI data)
BIOS-e820: 000000001fff8000 - 0000000020000000 (ACPI NVS)
BIOS-e820: 00000000fec00000 - 00000000fec01000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000fee00000 - 00000000fee01000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000ffee0000 - 00000000fff00000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000fffc0000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
511MB LOWMEM available.
On node 0 totalpages: 131056
DMA zone: 4096 pages, LIFO batch:1
Normal zone: 126960 pages, LIFO batch:16
HighMem zone: 0 pages, LIFO batch:1
DMI 2.3 present.
ACPI: RSDP (v000 AMI ) @ 0x000fa340
ACPI: RSDT (v001 AMIINT SiS735XX 0x00001000 MSFT 0x0100000b) @ 0x1fff0000
ACPI: FADT (v001 AMIINT SiS735XX 0x00001000 MSFT 0x0100000b) @ 0x1fff0030
ACPI: DSDT (v001 SiS 735 0x00000100 MSFT 0x0100000d) @ 0x00000000
Building zonelist for node : 0
Kernel command line: auto BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe ro root=305 failsafe devfs=nomount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=ht
ide_setup: hdc=ide-scsi
Local APIC disabled by BIOS -- reenabling.
Found and enabled local APIC!
Initializing CPU#0
PID hash table entries: 2048 (order 11: 16384 bytes)
Detected 1527.138 MHz processor.
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
Memory: 515132k/524224k available (1928k kernel code, 8344k reserved, 745k data, 248k init, 0k highmem)
Calibrating delay loop... 3022.84 BogoMIPS
Dentry cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
checking if image is initramfs...it isn't (no cpio magic); looks like an initrd
Freeing initrd memory: 18k freed
CPU: After generic identify, caps: 0383fbff c1c3fbff 00000000 00000000
CPU: After vendor identify, caps: 0383fbff c1c3fbff 00000000 00000000
CPU: L1 I Cache: 64K (64 bytes/line), D cache 64K (64 bytes/line)
CPU: L2 Cache: 256K (64 bytes/line)
CPU: After all inits, caps: 0383fbff c1c3fbff 00000000 00000020
Intel machine check architecture supported.
Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#0.
CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 1800+ stepping 02
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
enabled ExtINT on CPU#0
ESR value before enabling vector: 00000000
ESR value after enabling vector: 00000000
Using local APIC timer interrupts.
calibrating APIC timer ...
..... CPU clock speed is 1526.0564 MHz.
..... host bus clock speed is 265.0489 MHz.
NET: Registered protocol family 16
EISA bus registered
spurious 8259A interrupt: IRQ7.
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfdb01, last bus=1
PCI: Using configuration type 1
mtrr: v2.0 (20020519)
ACPI: Subsystem revision 20031002
ACPI: Interpreter disabled.
Linux Plug and Play Support v0.97 (c) Adam Belay
ACPI: ACPI tables contain no PCI IRQ routing entries
PCI: Invalid ACPI-PCI IRQ routing table
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
PCI: Using IRQ router SIS [1039/0008] at 0000:00:02.0
apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x03 (Driver version 1.16ac)
VFS: Disk quotas dquot_6.5.1
devfs: v1.22 (20021013) Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
devfs: boot_options: 0x0
Initializing Cryptographic API
pty: 1024 Unix98 ptys configured
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 32000K size 1024 blocksize
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
SIS5513: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:02.5
SIS5513: chipset revision 208
SIS5513: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
SIS5513: SiS735 ATA 100 (2nd gen) controller
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xff00-0xff07, BIOS settings: hdaMA, hdbMA
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xff08-0xff0f, BIOS settings: hdcMA, hddMA
hda: WDC WD200BB-00DGA0, ATA DISK drive
Using anticipatory io scheduler
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
hdc: LG CD-RW CED-8120B, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
hda: max request size: 128KiB
hda: 39102336 sectors (20020 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=38792/16/63, UDMA(100)
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0: p1 p2 < p5 p6 >
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard on isa0060/serio0
serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1
md: md driver 0.90.0 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27
EISA: Probing bus 0 at eisa0
NET: Registered protocol family 2
IP: routing cache hash table of 4096 buckets, 32Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 32768 bind 65536)
NET: Registered protocol family 1
NET: Registered protocol family 8
NET: Registered protocol family 20
md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
md: autorun ...
md: ... autorun DONE.
RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
found reiserfs format "3.6" with standard journal
Reiserfs journal params: device hda5, size 8192, journal first block 18, max trans len 1024, max batch 900, max commit age 30, max trans age 30
reiserfs: checking transaction log (hda5) for (hda5)
Using r5 hash to sort names
Freeing unused kernel memory: 248k freed
Real Time Clock Driver v1.12
drivers/usb/core/usb.c: registered new driver usbfs
drivers/usb/core/usb.c: registered new driver hub
ohci_hcd: 2003 Oct 13 USB 1.1 'Open' Host Controller (OHCI) Driver (PCI)
ohci_hcd: block sizes: ed 64 td 64
PCI: Found IRQ 12 for device 0000:00:02.2
PCI: Sharing IRQ 12 with 0000:00:0f.0
ohci_hcd 0000:00:02.2: OHCI Host Controller
ohci_hcd 0000:00:02.2: irq 12, pci mem e08bb000
ohci_hcd 0000:00:02.2: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 1-0:1.0: 3 ports detected
PCI: Found IRQ 5 for device 0000:00:02.3
ohci_hcd 0000:00:02.3: OHCI Host Controller
ohci_hcd 0000:00:02.3: irq 5, pci mem e08bd000
ohci_hcd 0000:00:02.3: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
hub 2-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 2-0:1.0: 3 ports detected
hub 2-0:1.0: new USB device on port 1, assigned address 2
Adding 257000k swap on /dev/hda6. Priority:-1 extents:1
Linux agpgart interface v0.100 (c) Dave Jones
agpgart: Detected SiS 735 chipset
agpgart: Maximum main memory to use for agp memory: 439M
agpgart: AGP aperture is 64M @ 0xd0000000
fglrx: module license 'Proprietary. (C) 2002 - ATI Technologies, Starnberg, GERMANY' taints kernel.
[fglrx] Maximum main memory to use for locked dma buffers: 431 MBytes.
PCI: No IRQ known for interrupt pin A of device 0000:01:00.0. Please try using pci=biosirq.
[fglrx] module loaded - fglrx 3.7.0 [Dec 18 2003] on minor 0
drivers/usb/core/usb.c: registered new driver hiddev
input: USB HID v1.00 Mouse [Microsoft Microsoft IntelliMouse® Explorer] on usb-0000:00:02.3-1
drivers/usb/core/usb.c: registered new driver hid
drivers/usb/input/hid-core.c: v2.0:USB HID core driver
SCSI subsystem initialized
ide-scsi is deprecated for cd burning! Use ide-cd and give dev=/dev/hdX as device
scsi0 : SCSI host adapter emulation for IDE ATAPI devices
Vendor: LG Model: CD-RW CED-8120B Rev: 1.03
Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Linux Tulip driver version 1.1.13 (May 11, 2002)
PCI: Found IRQ 12 for device 0000:00:0f.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 12 with 0000:00:02.2
eth0: ADMtek Comet rev 17 at 0xd400, 00:02:2A:B4:4D:0E, IRQ 12.
serio: kseriod exiting
inserting floppy driver for 2.6.0
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077
sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 31x/32x writer cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12
Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
drivers/usb/core/usb.c: deregistering driver hiddev
drivers/usb/core/usb.c: deregistering driver hid
NET: Registered protocol family 17
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 0000:00:02.7
intel8x0: clocking to 48000
drivers/usb/core/usb.c: registered new driver hiddev
input: USB HID v1.00 Mouse [Microsoft Microsoft IntelliMouse® Explorer] on usb-0000:00:02.3-1
drivers/usb/core/usb.c: registered new driver hid
drivers/usb/input/hid-core.c: v2.0:USB HID core driver
[fglrx] Maximum main memory to use for locked dma buffers: 431 MBytes.
[fglrx] AGP detected, AgpState = 0x1f000207 (hardware caps of chipset)
agpgart: Found an AGP 2.0 compliant device at 0000:00:00.0.
agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:00:00.0 into 4x mode
agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:01:00.0 into 4x mode
[fglrx] AGP enabled, AgpCommand = 0x1f000304 (selected caps)
[fglrx] free AGP = 54800384
[fglrx] max AGP = 54800384
[fglrx] free LFB = 122683392
[fglrx] max LFB = 122683392
[fglrx] free Inv = 0
[fglrx] max Inv = 0
[fglrx] total Inv = 0
[fglrx] total TIM = 0
[fglrx] total FB = 0
[fglrx] total AGP = 16384

when you pressed ctrl-alt-f1, were there any messages? startx should try to start the default desktop manager so if it didn't start kde, there might have been some messages.

You can try to force it to start kde with
startx /usr/bin/startkde
(I think this is the right path for startkde; you can find out with
whereis kde)

I don't think dmesg is relevant. at least, X is running and it didn't lock up your keyboard. Do try to start icewm as well.

I try running /usr/bin/startkde as a normal user (ttilt) and as root. Here are the error messages that I get when I try to run it as a normal user:

xset: unable to open display ""
xsetroot: unable to open display ''
xmodmap: unable to open display ''
xmodmap: unable to open display ''
startkde: Starting up...
ksplash: cannot connect to X server
kdeinit: Aborting. $DISPLAY is not set.
Warning: connect() failed: : No such file or directory
The following installation problem was detected
while trying to start KDE:

No write access to '/home/ttilt/.ICEauthority'.

KDE is unable to start.
ksmserver: cannot connect to X server
startkde: Shutting down...
Warning: connect() failed: : No such file or directory
Error: Can't contact kdeinit!
startkde: Running shutdown scripts...
startkde: Done.

and here are the messages I get when trying to run it as root:

xset: unable to open display ""
xsetroot: unable to open display ''
xmodmap: unable to open display ''
xmodmap: unable to open display ''
startkde: Starting up...
ksplash: cannot connect to X server
kdeinit: Aborting. $DISPLAY is not set.
Warning: connect() failed: : No such file or directory
ksmserver: cannot connect to X server
startkde: Shutting down...
Warning: connect() failed: : No such file or directory
Error: Can't contact kdeinit!
startkde: Running shutdown scripts...
startkde: Done.

don't run /usr/bin/startkde by itself. You *MUST* do it via

startx /usr/bin/startkde

(startkde by itself expects X to be up and running)

yeah i was reading about it on www.kde.org and realized that. THen I tried that: I went into X and from there typed startkde, I received a whole bunch of messages on the console there which I couldn't copy. Then after that I decided to remove all the packages related to XFree86, after removing all of them I tried re-installing Mandrake, and reconfiguring the X during installation. As a result, now I at least got a colored login screen, not a grey screen anymore and my keyboard is also working. But after i put my username and password there and press enter the screen blinks and I am taken back to the login screen... If I repeat this process, I'm taken back to the login screen everytime I try to login and after a few times, I'm taken to the text login screen, which obviously works. But that's it, I can't login graphically.

Are there any configuration or log files you'd like to see?

THanks

how did you 'remove' things related to X? It might be that it got rid of KDE and things like that as well since these depend on X.

rpm -e --nodeps <package name>

I did this for almost all packages that were related to XFree86 (rpm -qa|grep -i xfree)

Then I reinstalled Mandrake and configured the video from there. I tested it and it seemed to work there. I do get the login, but can't go any further graphically.

Should I remove and re-install the kde rpms?

as root try

urpmi kdebase

urpmi is a mandrake tool for making rpm installations easier by taking care of dependencies. kdebase is the base package of kde and if it is not installed, it will install it and everything else that is needed. Also, if you have any files in your *home directory* starting with .x or .X - that is, hidden files that start with x or X and also are not for things like xine or xmms, remove them (back them up though).

You can try reinstall all kde packages with first

urpme kdebase

(this removes kde) and then

urpmi kdebase

You'll probably have to still install things like kdenetwork but that can be taken care of later.

The problem is that there are the following packages with kdebase in their name:

kdebase-konsole-3.1.3-79.1.92mdk
kdebase-servicemenu-1.0-12mdk
libkdebase4-konsole-3.1.3-79.1.92mdk
kdebase-progs-3.1.3-79.1.92mdk
kdebase-nsplugins-3.1.3-79.1.92mdk
libkdebase4-3.1.3-79.1.92mdk
kdebase-kdm-config-file-3.1.3-79.1.92mdk
libkdebase4-devel-3.1.3-79mdk
kdebase-kdm-3.1.3-79.1.92mdk
libkdebase4-nsplugins-3.1.3-79.1.92mdk
kdebase-common-3.1.3-79.1.92mdk

Besides if I use urpme it will uninstall everything that depends on it too, and later when I re-install I won't be able to re-install the things that were removed automatically. I can try doing an rpm -e --nodeps on something and reinstalling immediately from the cd.
I've already deleted the .x files and the problem remains..

if you other qui's installed, can you start the others? At the graphical login, you should have a way of choosing which desktop manager you want.

Also, I think, deleting kde with urpme is the best. yes, it will delete pretty much the whole of kde but installing things back is not that hard. use urpmi to get back the basic package and then use rpmdrake to see what else you need from the kde packages. You might even find that there's plenty of kde stuff you don't need.

I've just tried uninstallnig kdebase using urpme. I decided to choose one that would remove a lot others along w/ it since there would be many others that depended on it.

So I chose to remove kdebase-common from that list that I gave you above. And a lot others were removed as well. Then in order to reinstall I decided to pick one that needed many others so that all others would be re-installed as well, so I picked kdebase-progs from that list and all others were re-installed automatically. Then I rebooted received a login screen that looked a little different but still had the same exact problem: I write my username and password, try to login, the screen blinks and I'm back at the login screen. After so many attempts I'm taken to the text login.

I've also tried the ICEWN and the same thing happens, so it doesn't seem to be KDE...

This seems to be one of the most strange problems that could happen, and all because I decided to upgrade XFree86...

Maybe if u take a look at some error logs, that would help clarify things? Maybe it's something to do w/ some leftover config file from the failed XFree86 installation attempt.

Well, at least I'm giving u a good challange for someone who has 1196 posts and has the name of LQ Addict :-)

I'm just an addict and not a guru

do you have a file called
.xsession-errors
or something like that in your home directory? that might contain the error messages. It would be best to clean out its contents beforehand (cat /dev/null > .xsession-errors) Another thing to try is to create a new user. The command is
adduser <new user name>
(as root). Use
passwd <user name>
as root to set the new user's password. It's just to see if it is some per-user setting that is messing things up or something more global.

here's the contents of .xessions-errors once it's been emptied and after I try to login:

/etc/X11/xdm/Xsession: line 45: exec: xsm: not found

THat one line... so it's probably some config file that's trying to load this xsm?

that one should be installed with the XFree86 package. Did you reinstall the package? You can try reinstalling the package with the --force option.

also, if it is installed, it should be in
/usr/X11R6/bin
see if xsm might be there but not with the right permissions. everybody should have execute permissions like this:

[root@ bin]# ll xsm
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 70040 Sep 5 16:01 xsm*


Just in case, you can find which package provides xsm with
urpmf xsm
it'll give you a bunch of things but it should be clear what package is the relevant one.