Messed-up my system....help please!

[BobbyS]

Hello,

I am running Ubuntu 8.10

I was changing permissions so I could install a program and hosed my system somehow. After rebooting I cannot log in. I get this message:

GDM could not write to your authorization file. This could be because your drive is full or your home directory could not be opened for writing. In any case it is not possible to log in.

I know for a fact that my drive is not full as this is a fresh install and I allowed plenty of room on my partitions. How can I get in, or am I going to have to reinstall (I hope not)?

Sooooo..........can someone please help me? Thanks in advance for any help!

Thank You
BobbyS

[coopstah13]

boot up in single user mode, you should be able to fix your permissions problems, I believe the second option when you're booting from grub will be the choice, it might be called rescue mode. It will start you in command line only mode.

if not, you can edit the boot param by pressing e on the kernel line and then appending single to the end of that line, then hit enter and press b to boot