> every time problem has occured nothing will work (imagine having a KDE desktop with revolving egg timers and nothing else), so can't use vi or emacs to look at kernel logs

This is one reason why Knoppix has (4) TEXT-mode logins, available at Ctrl-Alt-F1 thru -F4...


Quote Originally Posted by swanut
thanks for the replies guys!

further info:

disc is either 4.0 DVD from magazine or 3.3 CD of good repute

every time problem has occured nothing will work (imagine having a KDE desktop with revolving egg timers and nothing else), so can't use vi or emacs to look at kernel logs

on one occaision however, a window did appear saying "KDEInit cannot launch..."

i'm pretty certain this is a hardware problem, if anyone has any ideas or has had similar problems i'd like to hear