Re: can't start gdm or login as user

[Kent West <westk@acu.edu>]

Dale Hair wrote:

> My wife's laptop crashed last night and after restarting gdm will not
> start.  I get a message 
>
> Server Authorization directory (daemon/ServAuthDir) is set to
> /var/lib/gdm but this does not exist. Please correct gdm configuration
> /etc/gdm/gdm.conf and restart gdm.
>
> and a blinking cursor.  When I press ENTER more services start up and I
> get
>
> Starting GNOME Display Manager: gdmgdm_config_parse Authdir /var/lib/gdm
> does not exist. Aborting.
> already running.
>
> and then the login prompt.
>
> The directory /var/lib/gdm does exist.
>
> I can login as root and startx OK, but when I try to login as pamela I
> get a message 
>
> unable to cd to "/home/pamela"
>
> The directory /home/pamela does exist.
>
> When logged in as root and su pamela I get 
>
> No shell
>
> I'm thinking (hoping) there is an easy solution, the 'No shell' gives me
> a clue but I don't know enough to fix this.  The laptop is running woody
> with dist-upgrade on Mar 27.  Any help will be greatly appreciated. 
Sounds like you've had some severe file system corruption.

Or that some partitions (/home, /var) may not be mounted. Does "mount" 
show all your defined partitions as being mounted?

What happens if you do an "ls -l /home"?

Kent



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