Knoppix not booting to desktop anymore

[caleb]

I am very new to Linux but I followed a guide and installed version 5.0 on a Compaq P4 1.8 GHZ with 512 RAM so it's booting from the hard drive. It was working fine for about a week then one day it just doesn't boot to the desktop anymore.

On booting it takes me to the compaq login prompt - compaq login:
After logging in I get "Welcome to Knoppix Kernel 2.6.17"
On the screen above the prompt it says "Starting K display Manager: KDM. Not starting X display manager (xdm) it is not the default display manager"
(==)using config file: "etc/X11/Xorg.conf"
(EE) Open dev/fb0: no such file or directory
(EE) no devices detected

I type startx at the prompt and get the following:

Fatal server error:
no screens found
X10 fatal IO error 104 (connection reset by peer) on X server: "0.0"
after 0 requests (0 known processed) with 0 events remaining

What went wrong and how do I fix it? Thanks

[johnrw]

I usually start mine with an "init 5" command. Knoppix uses run levels and it goes into run level 5 when it goes into gui mode, and run level 2 is the command line. You can even type init 2 if you are root, or sudo init 2, to leave X from a terminal. Try using init 5 instead.

[caleb]

Thanks for replying...
I did what you said. Both init 5 and init 2 give the following:
init: must be superuser
When I try sudo init 2 I get "%username% is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported"
There was just one username that I supplied during the install and that's the one that I tried to use but telling me that it must be superuser. What's the next step?

[johnrw]

Can you log in as root? What happens when you type: su at the prompt after those error messages?

This hard drive installation seems less and less like knoppix. Did you install it using the knoppix-installer script?

Question... Would you like a knoppix to run fast from the hard drive and never changes until Klaus upgrades Knoppix itself?
That way you can not break it... lol. It's what I have. You can learn alot easier if you have one that doesn't break :)
I then made a 3 gigabyte persistent home... which allows me to install things. If I break it... then all I need to do is to make a new persistent home file. But Knoppix stays Knoppix with all the creature comforts I have gotten used to.
If you would like that... then you can say so and I'll try and help you get that install type on your system. Not knowing what your partitions are like... how many disks you have etc... I can't do that yet. Buuuuuut....

It looks like your xorg.conf got messed up. If you can boot up knoppix from cd/dvd and explore (using konqueror) your installation's /etc/X11/ folder... maybe whatever changed it... saved the old one as xorg.conf.bak or something.
Failing that... I would try and copy the one from knoppix when booted from the cd, it's /etc/X11/xorg.conf and put it in the installation's /etc/X11 folder. But back up what xorg.conf file is already there before copying over it with a new one.

Now maybe I shouldn't tell you this, but you can get a konqueror file explorer in "root user" mode... by going to the K menu->System->More Applications->File Manager - Super User Mode. You can do this when you have booted off the knoppix cd/dvd disk at least. This will allow you to copy files to the installation.

Good Luck!

[johnrw]

Another thing I thought of after I answered is you can boot Knoppix from cd and edit the /etc/sudoers file of your installation using visudo from a terminal. I would add your login name at the bottom of the file... and duplicate the knoppix user line...
like so:
knoppix ALL=NOPASSWD: ALL
caleb ALL=NOPASSWD: ALL

then at least you could do superuser (root) things on your installation while logged in as yourself.

[caleb]

So this is what I've done..........
I log in as root and typed init 5 and it just gives a new prompt. It doesn't seem to have done anything.

Typing init 2 gives the following - switching to run level: 2
root@compaq: stopping the K display manager: kdm
stopping X display manager: xdm not running (/var/run/xdm.pid not found).

Typing su at the prompt just gives a new prompt.

I am going to boot with the cd and see if I can follow what you said and do some editing. I will try that before I do the one that I cannot break. This will make me learn the hard way. This is a totally new environment for me so it will be painfully slow. I was married to microsoft but I am working on a divorce/separation.

For the install I followed this guide - http://www.linfo.org/knoppixinstall.html

[johnrw]

Just curious... can you type

fdisk -l /dev/hda
and put the output here?
Also, ...how many hard disks are in the machine?

At least you are logged in as root... so you should be able to add your username to the /etc/sudoers file... but that won't help you out that much. You are already superuser, so there is no need to use sudo in front of your commands. That is for when you are logged in as an ordinary user.... such as the knoppix user account.

Also... you should only type init 2 when you are in kde(or any gui you have chosen)... and init 5 when you are at that root@compaq prompt.

[johnrw]

I don't think your installer instructions are very good. It just stops suddenly.

Now here is a discussion giving a very detailed step by step recount of how he installed knoppix. For instance he covers assigning the root password before installing knoppix to hd. He had to use acpi=off on his kernel command line that you may not need.
http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=116267#116267

I am now saying this because you have already followed the other how to... and reformatted your disk. I now can't assume you still have windows. I would try following that howto to get your knoppix re-installed. Just make sure to adjust the drive/partition specifiers. He is on /dev/hdc which is the drive setup as "the master" drive on the second ide controller. Yours is probably not the same as his. I have never installed knoppix that way though... because I like having an unbreakable OS. All I can mess up is a persistent home... lol. Those can be backed up... and restored so easilly there is no excuse for having any problems with losing my browser passwords etc. But once you get that reinstalled... the first thing you should be looking into is making a regular user... if there is no knoppix account already. Should be one, but if not then you need a regular user that you can login with... so that you will not be able tp run programs that change your system settings.

I still have my XP, but use it less and less...(been 2 weeks since i've seen it!)
If you still have XP on another drive... we can use XP's boot manager... and add a line to the C:\boot.ini to activate a Linux boot option. Then boot using grub4dos, and Gilles minirt_511a.gz which incorporates some really needed features like reading ntfs files. If you still have the file you used to burn the knoppix cd/dvd with... you can just run from that file on the windows drive. Mine... well I have a c:\knoppix.iso file... the same dvd file i had to download to make the knoppix disk. It's unbreakable!

Later I made a new partition to hold my persistent home... and one just for the knoppix.iso file. I shrunk windows C drive... by a measly 20 Gigabytes... then made 2 partitions... a 5 gig to hold the knoppix.iso and 15 gig for a couple persistent homes. I am only using 6 gig of that one because I made a 3 gig persistent home... which is just a knoppix.img file in that partition... and a knoppix.img.bak.

This repartitioning had a very good reason... it seems that if you boot from the C:\knoppix.iso file, or the C:\KNOPPIX\KNOPPIX file that the tohd option put on the drive... (if it is a fat32 drive) you cannot write to that drive in knoppix. So I made a separate partition just to hold that knoppix.iso file. It can never be changed by knoppix.

Then I can write to files on the windows partitions.
If you still have a windows partition... let me know... and I will put some files together to show you how to do this. I had done it once before... but that was for an earlier version. Oh yeah... you should get knoppix 5.1.1 if you don't have that. It has much better ntfs support than any version prior.

[caleb]

I was away for a while that's why I did not reply.
There is one physical hard disk in the machine and linux is the only OS running on that machine. I have XP on another machine. I logged in as root and typing fdisk -l /dev/hda gives the following:
Disk /dev/hda: 20 GB
255 heads, 63 sectors/tracks, 2434 cylinders
units = cylinders of 16065 * 512=8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks ID System
/dev/hda1 * 1 2188 17575078 83 linux
/dev/hda2 2189 2434 1975995 82 linux swap/solaris

I am going to work on those other suggestions that you gave now.

[johnrw]

Ok you are back...

ok type this from the console only.
init 5

that will likely fail again... then

cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log
and paste that in here.