Graphic login hangs in Slackware 10

[FacelessNobody]

Hi

I had a Slack 10 install running last week, but now it hangs at a grey screen just before the GUI login (I have my mouse cursor, but it's the stopwatch). Just prior to this, I had used swaret to download several packages from both a standard mirror and a third party package mirror (one found at linuxpackages.net). After the download, I rebooted and was greeted with the aforementioned grey screen.

I do have a functioning command line if I Ctrl-Alt-F6, so I'm sure I'll be using it . Where should I start? I imagine I'll be grep'ing something. I'll try to clarify things if my question is confusing, but I'm not quite sure how to phrase it at the moment.

Thanks for any help

 

[yelo333]

So, you've got a mouse cursor, is it the big black X, or the stopwatch thingy? And, does it move when you move the mouse?

Also, what are you using for graphical login? I believe it might be gdm. you can test by logging in on the F6 terminal, and 'ps -e | grep gdm' and see if anything comes up for ya. If anything does, and the answer to the does the mouse move question is YES, your gdm theme might be crashing. Try continually ctrl+alt+back-spaceing the X server to force it to restart over + over, which tricks gdm into believeing the theme is not working. This forces it to load it's safe standard login. If this actually works, login, and start the gdm setup, by running 'gdmsetup'. From there, change your theme.


also, assuming you used the default lilo setup during the install, at the lilo prompt, add a 3 to the end of linux before you boot, for example, at the 'boot:' prompt, type 'linux 3'. this will force a text login, and not the gui login. from there, try typing 'startx' and seeing if it infact is some funky X setup problem you have.


Good luck!

 

[FacelessNobody]

Before I get to work here, I can tell you that it is the stopwatch thingy, not the X, and it does move.

 

[FacelessNobody]

Reporting in,

When forcing a text login, 'startx' boots me straight into Gnome like it should, but it's...strange. My desktop wallpaper is gone, and the box that shows what Gnome is loading only goes away if I click on it. Fortunately, all of the programs I installed with swaret are present and accounted for.

The output of ps -e | grep gdm is as follows:

1728 ? 00:00:00 gdm -binary
1741 ? 00:00:00 gdm -binary

I killed X with ctrl+alt+backspace, and in the terminal tried to run 'gdmsetup', but that produced the following message:

(gdmsetup:1785): Gtk-WARNING ** cannot open display:

Any ideas?

 

[yelo333]

Originally posted by: FacelessNobody
Reporting in,

When forcing a text login, 'startx' boots me straight into Gnome like it should, but it's...strange. My desktop wallpaper is gone, and the box that shows what Gnome is loading only goes away if I click on it. Fortunately, all of the programs I installed with swaret are present and accounted for.

The output of ps -e | grep gdm is as follows:

1728 ? 00:00:00 gdm -binary
1741 ? 00:00:00 gdm -binary

I killed X with ctrl+alt+backspace, and in the terminal tried to run 'gdmsetup', but that produced the following message:

(gdmsetup:1785): Gtk-WARNING ** cannot open display:

Any ideas?

Do you have any idea what swaret installed/upgraded?

OK, the idea using ctrl+alt+bkspace was meant to be used when booted into the graphical login(when you get it hanging there with just the stopwatch), so just boot it up as normal, without adding the '3', and wait till it hangs. THEN, do ctrl+alt+bkspace a few times(might be 3 or 4), until it comes up and says that the greeter seems to be crashing(because YOU are crashing it, on purpose), and that it will have to try a different one. click OK, and if all is well, it will load the standard greeter. At this point, you will need to log in, and run 'gdmsetup', so you can change the theme.

The whole point of the last paragragraph was that there is a possiblity that swaret upgraded something, and corrupted one of your themes, thereby causing the freeze...