I am aware of this bash thing that lies within the system of which executes what I command. I dont know much about it other than that, and that I use it or that it is active everytime I log-in or issue commands via konsole. But now when I log in, it just says -bash-3.1$ then your famous white blinking line. I can't startx.

Here's how I arrived to this:

I have slackware 11 with xorg 6.9, kernel 2.6.18.6. Things are great, everything -- justrecently compiled to this kernel, and finally learned which of those modules I need for me to mount my root partition (took almost more than a dozen attempts). Anyway, I installed ATI Proprietery driver 8.33.6, the latest i believe, and things are working. the glxgears are moving quickly and smoothly, as wwhen once before in another time of 5500fps, but this time it outputs ilke.. 55fps or no more than 300. However, the gears are moving quite fast and smooth, lagless as when I had about 5500fps on another day. I found this a little odd. I dunno. glxinfo tells me that my direct rendering is active or yes. Odd.. Also, after a lil while, funny things start to go on.. when I try to reboot, the screen goes blk and the computer doesn't reboot.. i have to hit the restart button. I figured it was the ati drivers. I used diff. xorg.conf files and it seemed to work normally. Anyway, I did a search for the drivers by ati that supposely worked best for the closest kernel to mine. I noticed that the earliest ati drivers for xorg6.9 are 8.24. I tried those and the 8.25 and it said some error bs to me about the kernels in /lib/modules/2.6.18.6/include/ soemthing soemthign didnt match my kernel. When I do have 2.6.18.6> It said to me in the ati-install.log that I needed to fix my symbolic links? of /usr/include and /usr/src/linux.. I did the ln -s but it already existed. I dunno. Anyway, I did a lot of installing, uninstalling of the ati stuff, and this and that.. then... one time after I rebooted, like normally right after i did th aticonfig --initial, it prompts me ith this bash stuff. Now I am stuck. Help? =[

I tried booting from the default kernel from the cd, same spot. I tried booting in diff. kernels, same spot. The only thing I know is to reformat and start again. Does anyone have an explanation for how I can resolve this without the extra time of reinstalling an dhaving ot recompile my kernel(yes, this time I saved a copy of my working 2.6 .config file ^^)??

Would be much appreciated. Thanks!

You can't startx?

No, I cannot. Here's the result of typing startx as root, just after I log-in from turning on the computer:

-bash-3.1# startx
-bash: startx: command not found
-bash-3.1#

This is new.. before it was a $ and not a #

K, well, the # means that you are root - usually.

What happens when you type:

-bash-3.1# init 5
INIT: Switching to runlevel: 5
-bash-3.1# white blinking line... nothing happened.. :-\

cd /usr/bin/
see if startx is there, this seems to be a reall odd error givin that it used to work

um.. i couldnt see the list entirely... it's way too long.. what's that command for it to only display so many entries at once?

I did try this:

cd /usr/bin
startx

then it said

command not found.

This wouldnt have anything to do with me looking at porn earlier in the night, eh?

Don't worry about it guys; I'm already reinstalling. I always have a separate partition for my personal data storage for times like these to make a reinstal simple and to not lose anything. Thank you for your efforts.

you have to put a period beofer the command if your in the dir

./startx