Re: user x login fails

[Kent West <westk@acu.edu>]

Tadek wrote:

> (sorry for double posting but my initial post in lists.debian.org was
> rejected since I had to
> subscribe first and after I did 2nd email address was given to me for
> posting)
>
> Dear friends,
>
> I encountered following problem (using debian sarge):
> - after installing k3b (apt-get), opera (dpkg from opera for sarge)
> and adobe reader in this order, I can not x login as ordinary user; I
> can still X login as a root; kde and gnome behave the same. When I
> enter user name and password in x client login dialog, screen blanks
> for second or two, X grey screen appears with X cursor and login
> dialog appears again.
>
> - in addition if I after successful login as root and starting kde session,
> I cannot close kde shell konsole; windows stays on but shell console is
> dead;
>
>
> I tried:
> - removed file /home/xxx/.kde
> - removed k3b and opera
> - upgraded installed packages
> - reinstalled k3b and opera
>
> I am relatively new to linux and very new to debian distribution.  Any help
> and/or pointers will be
> appreciated.
>
> Regards,
> Tad
>
>
>  
Shell out of the graphical login manager (Ctrl-Alt-F2 should do it) and 
log in as a normal user there. Then shut down your login manager (with 
something like "sudo /etc/init.d/kdm stop", replacing "sudo" with 
whatever method you use to perform this function as root, and replacing 
"kdm" with the name of whatever login manager you're using, almost 
certainly kdm, wdm, gdm or xdm). Then try starting X with "startx" (as 
the normal user).

Does it work?
Yes - then something's wrong with the login manager's setup.
No - then try creating a "~/.xinitrc" file and putting the single line 
of "icewm" in it, and make sure icewm is installed (sudo apt-get install 
icewm). Now try "startx".

Does it work?
Yes - then something is wrong with your normal window manager / desktop 
environment (KDE)?
No - then something's wrong with X itself.

Let us know the results, and we'll go from there.

--
Kent