Login Impossible

[Peffe]

Greetings All.

At the advice of another forum member, I upgraded from RH 7.2 (which is apparently ancient), to FC 6.

The installation went very smoothly, and I was able to reboot and log in (using the graphical log-on screen) to the desktop. I took an hour to learn the desktop environment and try and install an application. I shut down the system during my lunch break, and now I can't log back in.

The graphical loading session works up until the actual log on screen, where I get dumped to the command line: localhost login:

No matter what I type (a created account name or "root"), the command prompt never makes it to the password section.

1) I type in root
2) I hit enter
3) There is a millisecond flash of the screen and I can barely make out the text "Login incorrect"
4) I'm back at localhost login:
5) After about 1 minute, my screen is spammed with this:

INIT: cannot execute "/usr/bin/X11/xdm"
INIT: cannot execute "/usr/bin/X11/xdm"
INIT: cannot execute "/usr/bin/X11/xdm"
INIT: cannot execute "/usr/bin/X11/xdm"
INIT: cannot execute "/usr/bin/X11/xdm"
INIT: cannot execute "/usr/bin/X11/xdm"
INIT: cannot execute "/usr/bin/X11/xdm"
INIT: Id "x" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes

Any suggestions or advice?

[devils casper]

this just means that the X server fails to start. switch to runlevel 3. in GRUB screen, select Fedora title and press 'e'. select 'kernel' line, press 'e' again and add <space> 3 at the end of line. press 'Enter' key and press 'b' to boot up. this will drop you on command line login prompt. log in as root. execute 'startx' command.
if startx doesn't work, you should get some error messages which provide clues as to why it doesn't work.




Casper

[Peffe]

Thanks for the quick reply.

I tried your suggestion.

1) Pressed 'e' at GRUB screen
2) Selected kernel and pressed 'e'
3) grub edit> kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6 ro rooLABEL=/1 rhgb quiet 3 (put the 3 at the end of the line and pressed 'enter'
4) Pressed 'b' to boot
5) Same problem at login screen. I type the 'root' and press enter, and I get popped right back to the localhost login:

I did manage to see one error during the boot process, but I don't know if it has any relation to this problem:

FATAL: Error inserting acpi_freq (libmodules2.6.8/arch/i386/kernel/cpu/cpufreq/acpicpufreq.ko: no such device

Still can't log in though.

[devils casper]

add 'acpi=off' in kernel line and check if it works.







Casper

[Peffe]

Right on, well, still having the same problem:

I've tried:

grub edit> kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6 ro rooLABEL=/1 rhgb quiet 3
grub edit> kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6 ro rooLABEL=/1 rhgb quiet acpi=off
grub edit> kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6 ro rooLABEL=/1 rhgb quiet 3 acpi=off

None worked, although I don't get the FATAL error now, I still can't log in. I'm pretty stumped on this one

[roonjha]

with 'acpi=off' Change it back to 'init 5' and see if it works.

[Peffe]

I decided to try something. I reinstalled the OS, and played around with it for a while under a created user account that wasn't root. I logged out, and logged back on as root, but in the command prompt, and not Gnome. Did some stuff, rebooted, everything still worked fine.

If I log on as root using graphical mode and reboot, I get the same problem. I read somewhere over the weekend about the possible problems that occur when logging on as root in graphical mode. I guess I found my problem, and am learning the proper etiquette for root usage. I haven't had the problem since remaining on my user account, taking advantage of 'sudo' command when I need it.

Glad I'm at least learning from my mistakes. Thanks for the help, btw! The information helped me greatly.

[Peffe]

Spoke too soon....again...I avoided logging on as root at the graphical screen.
Even when at the command prompt, I log on as a regular user and use 'su' to perform installations of software.....

But the problem has come back...I tried 'acpi=off' and putting a '5' at the end of the kernel, but that seemed to exacerbate the problem.

Anyone else have suggestions? Reinstalling Linux to fix this is probably not the way to go, and is getting quite tiresome.

[Skiboy]

Reboot in to single user mode and post the /etc/grub.conf and /etc/inittab files.

[Peffe]

grub.conf:

#boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,4)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora Core(2.6.18-1.2869.fc6)
         root (hd0,4)
         kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-1.2869.fc6 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
         initrd /initrd-2.6.18-1.2869.fc6.img
title Other
      rootnoverify (hd0,0)
      chainloader +1

inittab:

id:5:initdefault:

si::sysinit:/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit

10:0:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 0
11:1:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 1
12:2:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 2
13:3:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 3
14:4:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 4
15:5:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 5
16:6:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 6

ud::once:/sbin/update

ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now

pf::powerfail:/sbin/shutdown -f -h +2 "Power Failure; System Shutting Down"

1:12345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty1
2:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty2
3:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty3
4:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty4
5:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty5
6:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty6

x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/X11/xdm -nodaemon