This is so annoying. I recently upgraded my mobo so i reformatted all my OS drives and reinstalled XP. I just installed mandrake, but now it wouldn't boot! I tried choosing "linux-nonfb" from grub, but that still didn't help.
What happens is it goes through all the loading services.... [OK] part
and then it enters KDE, KDE starts loading up and gives me percentages. The percentage always stops at 85%, which is either "restoring previous session" or "loading panel."
after a while, that loading window disappear but nothing else changes. the background is still plain blue, and there's nothing i can do. I can move the cursor and go to the other consoles tho (ctrl=alt-f#) but i don't know how that can help me.

any help would be appreciated! >_< thanks!!

it may be a problem with your graphical settings, try running xf86config from the command line and configure your graphics setting, or run drakconf from the command line and set up your resolution to something nice and safe - ie 800x600 with 8 or 16bit colour, xf86confi will allow you to sepcify whether or not to let your screen be bigger than it should be, which is a good option.

If it turns out that KDE is genuinely having troubles starting - see if Gnome works..... process of elimination - works every time

how do i bootup into gnome? since i'm auto-logged in

ok i stil haven't found out how ot boot into gnome. <-------?
I don't know how to close X after it's been autorun either, <----?
but i changed /etc/inittab file to be default runlevel 3, from there i can run KDE and if it hangs i can go back to the virtual console i ran it from and ctrl-c.
from there i found out that as root i can boot KDE fine with the current display settings but not as the normal user. the normal user always hangs at 85%. <-------

Any ideas on any of those 3 things? :P
thanks bunches!

I'm hoping that it's a relatively new install and if you delete everything under /home/USERNAME it won't be missed, so do the following:

When logged in as root, type the following:

***********************************

userdel USERNAME

groupdel USERNAME

usermod -G USERNAME USERNAME

rm -rf /home/USERNAME

**********************************

Now that will have removed your username, usergroup, affiliations with other groups and everything under and including /home/USERNAME

Now to add it all back again:

**********************************

useradd USERNAME

groupadd USERNAME

usermod -G USERNAME USERNAME
usermod -G users USERNAME

mkdir /home/USERNAME

usermod -d /home/USERNAME USERNAME

**********************************

That then creates your user account, and the group for it, gives the group user rights, then connects your username to your group, makes your home directory and joins your home dir to your username.

Hope i have helped...... if there any errors in what i have told you - try google, it is fairly general linux stuff, but i';m not in front of a linux machine, so it may not be 100% accurate - but it looks fine to me

And of coruse throughout the whole thing - replace USERNAME with your login name - ie John, or in my case - dickohead

Complicated answers to a (relatively) simple problem.

CTRL-ALT-F2 or F1 at the login screen.

Login as root from the text login.

CD /home/USERNAME

rm -rf .kde
rm -rf Desktop
rm -rf tmp/*

Exit

then CTRL-ALT-F7 to get back to the login screen.

Now log in.