When I installed Mandriva 2006 a few weeks back, I set it up so that it automatically logged me on into the KDE 3.4 Desktop (and would automatically log me off and shutdown the system). This morning, I started up the PC and let it boot into Mandriva. However, it did not take me straight into the KDE 3.4 Desktop, but presented me with a none GUI interface (black DOS type screen) which asked me for my username and password. I entered these, then discovered that if I then typed 'startx', I was able to enter into the KDE 3.4 Desktop and everything worked just fine. However, when I went to shut down the system, I was only presented with an option to 'log off', which would take me back to the black DOS type screen (as described earlier). If I typed 'poweroff' at the prompt, the system would close down - no problems. Has anyone got an idea as to what has happened here? I have actually 'solved' the problem by reinstalling a backup archive file of my Linux partition which I did via my Windows disk imaging software program, so all seems well again. However, it does seem an extreme measure to take to get things back to normal - that is to say, I'm sure it could have been achieved via Mandriva, but I'm very much a Linux newbie and do not know how I could have gone about it. Any help would be very much appreciated. Dave.
For the startup problem, it sounds as if your default runlevel might have been changed. Take a look at /etc/inittab Code: more /etc/inittab and look for a line that looks something like this: id:2:initdefault: On many systems, runlevel 3 is the nongui mode, and runlevel 5 is with X running. My system is debian so it's a little different. Here are the 'standard' ones 0 halt 1 single user mode 2 multiuser with no network services exported 3 normal/full multiuser 4 reserved for local use, default is normal/full multiuser 5 multiuser with a display manager or equivalent 6 reboot Keep in mind that this may not be the problem. If you suspect it is, first from when you first turn on your machine, try to start the appropriate runlevel: sudo init 5 and see if that brings it to what you expect. If so, simply edit /etc/inittab as root to have it start at the default runlevel. If that isn't the problem, we can start looking at other possible causes. Hope this helps, Matt
Hi, Matt. Thanks very much for the very useful & informative reply - I'm sure it will come in handy for the future, should the problem arise again. As I have said - I have already reinstalled, so things are okay - but if and when the problem resurfaces I'll now have a much better idea of how to go about resolving it. David
heh, oops. I didn't even see that last part of you rpost. Just saw the problem and started typing a reply. Cheers.
Agreed, it sounds like a runlevel problem. Runlevel 5 is the multiuser with X window system in Mandriva like most distros. The reason you couldn't shutdown was because you started X as a normal user, which doesn't have the permissions to shutdown/reboot the system.
