For no apparent reason my Open SuSE 11.4 system, on booting goes into the command prompt screen instead of the GUI.
A couple of error messages prior to the logon seem relevant:-

Loading Firewall Rules mktemp: failed to create file via template
'/temp/SuSEfirewall112_iptables.XXXXXXXX: not a directory
FAILED
Master Resource Control Running /etc/init.d/after.local
DONE

Master Resource Control Runlevel 5 has been reached

Failed services in runlevel 5
SuSEfirewall112_init SuSEfirewall112_setup

Welcome to Open SuSE 11.4
login------------------

I have tried startX, but no good.
From this it seems to me that a a directory/file in my SuSEfirewall is corrupt or missing,
can this fault be corrected ? if so how do I do it ? in detail please, as I am not good with using the command prompt. thanks.

The command is startx ( all lower case, linux is case sensitive. )

If it fails, go to /var/log directory, and look in a file called Xorg.0.log. There will be errors if x failed to start. Post them.

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Might be you can run yast yast2 or I think (you have to check) something likek Sax2 to adjust video.

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Thanks for the replies, but how do I get from the command prompt to -- /var/log directory, and look in a file called Xorg.0.log.
also to yast2. Yes startx, sorry a typo. Regards.

/var/log/Xorg.0.log is a plain test file, and can be read with any test editor. You need to be root to edit it ( deleted lines etc ). Since you only need to look at it, open any file manager you have on the system. Depending on the file manager, go to the root of the file system '/'. In Dolphin it shows a red 'root' on the left pane. Click that. It should open a list of directories in root. var is one of them. Click it. In var you will find log. Click again. In that directory you will see many log files, Xorg.0.log is the current one. Open it with any test editor. You are looking for error messages. Then are marked at the beginning of the line by (EE) notation. Here is a sample from mine, it it not broken, so I can't shoe you errors; just information messages, (II).

This is just a sample, you are looking for (EE) messages. Post what you find.

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flatstan ?
What did you last do?
Was there a update?
if so do you have have a nvidia card?
if so
nvidia.run, nvidia.rpm or the open Nouveau ???

did you reinstall whatever driver for whatever 3d card ( if you have one) ?

also it is time to plan on upgrading to 12.1 (or 12.2 when it comes out)
11.4 is about to hit it's End f Life soon .


not REinstalling a closed source driver is a very common cause of this type of problem.

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Thanks again people,
no my card is an ATI & I use FGLRX - ATI config.
My problem is - I really don't understand how to - open /edit / copy / etc files,
install stuff etc,etc from the command line, which now is all that I have
available to me.
I have some files that I really would like to recover
but I am seriously considering cutting my losses & reinstalling from scratch
I tried 12.1 for a couple of weeks when it first came out but did not like it -
not as - stable / easy to use / easy to configure as 11.4 - so I am sticking with 11.4 for the time being.
I would appreciate any advice on how to work from the command line.
Thanks, regards.

Lets see if I can give you some help.

You need to use programs that do not require the xserver, since it is not running. To open a text file, there are several programs that will do it. Almost all linux distros ship with vi, however, that is intimidating for someone new to the command line. I would suggest you try nano, or pico.

You do need to know who owns the file in question. If it is root, and you want to modify the file, then you need to use su ( or sudo ) to get root privileges. If its a file your user owns, just open the file as your user.

O.K., so you want to open the file /var/log/Xorg.0.log, to find the error messages. As a regular user, you would type 'nano /var/log/Xorg.0.log' and press enter ( no quotes, just what is between the quotes ). The file will open if, nano is installed, the path is correct, and the file name is correct; including case in the path and name. If it does not open, look at the output. A "Command not found" indicates nano is not there. Try pico instead. If that fails also, try vi. It should work. There are help files for new users for vi.

If you get "file not found" then the path may be wrong, typo etc. You might find it easier to navigate to the directory, use 'cd /name/of/dir/' to go to the /name/of/dir. cd /var/log/ would take you to the dir with Xorg.0.log.

To copy a file. The command is 'cp /path/nameoffile /destinationpath/nameoffile' This leaves the source file in place, and creates a new file in the destination dir with the name you give it ( nameoffile ).

I suggested nano, I use it a lot, and there is help info on the bottom of the screen telling you how to do basic things, like save the file after you modify it.

These are skills you need in the long run for any distro. Even if you decide to re-install, after, take some time and learn the basics so you learn how to help yourself.

Hope this helps.

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"MC" ( midnight commander )is a good tool for the terminal only
or
when xorg and the gui fail

however it is not installed by default
( i am on ScientificLinux 6 at this time -- so from memory )
but it WILL take a bit of time to learn !!!
or use "nano"

nano is a NON gui text editor that is very easy to use


as to OpenSUSE 12.1
i take it you installed Gnome3 (gnome-shell)
( personal opinion so.... Gnome 3 is P.O.S -- the not nice version of that .And with a VERY nasty BUG( known and open issue still) that FORCED me to remove it from the computer )

if so install the xfce desktop , it is closer to gnome2
cinnamon and mate ????? do not YET cut it

or use KDE4 like i turned to
kde is slowly growing on me -- like mold , but growing

2 months after OpenSUSE 12.2 comes out
all support for 11.4 will END

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I highly recommend you get your head around this tutorial http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz

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Thanks everybody for your help.
As rightly suggested I have obtained a tutorial on the command line and a list of
most commands.
I had not realized that it is very similar to DOS which I used when I first started
computing, I have been lazy I suppose, as modern Linux is so easy to use without the command line.
until something goes wrong.
Any way the command line is not as opaque as I thought.
So using the command line and your suggestions I found that something major has occurred
with my system, I don't know why. I am unable to log in to my user account, I can log into root OK,
also I am not able to navigate to my user account via root, some directories and files seem to be missing
altogether.
So as I said I will cut my losses and reinstall 11.4, it only takes a couple of hours to install
and configure, less time than I have spent already trying to fix.
When 12.2 is released in September I will give that a try, hopefully the problems with 12.1 will be solved.
My problem is not solved but I now I am starting to use the command line and I will persevere with learning it, so thanks for that.
Also thanks for the link to the tutorial, it is really excellent, I will work through it.
Is there a similar tutorial with a full list of command line commands including the parameters,
switches they were called in DOS, which also includes the SuSE specific commands.
Anyway thanks again to you all for your help, I have learned a lot, so something good has come from the crash.
Regards.

The full list would be too much, but you might want to bookmark this http://linux.die.net/man/ and look each one up as you go.

There's way too many to memorise