Re: bewildering boot problem -- a little more info

[Glenn English <ghe@slsware.net>]

On Oct 5, 2015, at 1:04 AM, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:

> Then try "ssh <yourusername>@localhost".

Works, kinda. It does the same thing to localhost or the hostname, from the console or from a terminal in XFCE. (I've got SSH running with keys around the local net(s) (no login required)). The MOTD comes up right away, but there's a long delay before the shell prompt comes up. 

startx takes a very long time and prints some error messages, but eventually runs XFCE as expected. Minicom works from a terminal in XFCE, but not from the console. iwconfig says wlan0 is connected to my wifi AP (Ethernet isn't available where the laptop is). A ping to a host on the LAN says there's no route available -- but there are a couple valid ones in the table.

OTOH, the kernel's startup messages are gone this morning. I'm thinking a bare metal reinstall is in order. One or more things are really bent in there somewhere. It seems to me that there's a networking problem, but intermittent and from several directions. I don't understand it at all.

Maybe it's hardware...

Thanks, everyone, for the suggestions.

-- 
Glenn English