KDE won't start

[asearle]

I have a system (Knoppix 3.7) which was working fine but after a dirty shutdown (power cut) won't start KDE. It goes through most of the boot process and gives me a (command line) login prompt but that's it.

I can certainly run things from the command prompt so I was wondering if there is a way to reset the 'broken' system? Or to manually start KDE and then shutdown cleanly?

Any tips would be gratefully received.

Many thanks,
Alan Searle.

[asearle]

In order to try to get KDE running (i.e. get past the command prompt), I have found recommendations to delete /.kde/share/config/ksmerverrc

This looks like what I need but I find the path/file present in two locations: in /etc/skel/ and /home/myusername/ and so I am not sure which one to delete. I am assuming it is the one in my home directory?

Any tips would be a great help.

Thanks,
Alan Searle

[Keithj]

I don't have a clue about the answer, but why not rename both - just add "asearle" to the end of the filename. That way, you can soon go back if it proves disastrous. You can clean up the folder later when it's working again.