Linux Error

March 8, 2013 10:39 PM

my computer froze, and when i tried to reboot it, it got to the green suse screen proceeded normally, and then when it went forward, i got an error message that said could not start "kdeinit4. check your installation" tried to fix it using the protocal i found here but sitll have the same problems with the error message. I hadn't plugged in my computer for about 5 months, because I had a laptop, but the laptop is on it's last legs, but it was working pretty well for the last couple of days.
posted by PinkMoose to computers & internet (3 answers total)

if you can't resolve it, brute force it: reinstall. I would back up everything, and then do a clean reinstall of linux on a harddisk in your desktop, and then copy your old home directory into the new installation. This would would be less elegant than reinstalling your system on one partition while leaving your /home partition untouched.

This is brute forcing it. I'd be booting up into a terminal instead of KDE or using a linux live cd or linux live image on a USB memory stick.
posted by sebastienbailard at 12:39 AM on March 9

First thing I'd do is start looking for suggestions newer than 2004. KDE4 doesn't use DCOP, MCOP, or aRts.

You should try creating another user on your system and logging in as that. If KDE loads then we know it's something with your home directory and not the system. If it is just your home directory the easiest thing to do would be to move your data/files into a new user and continue on from there.

If it is the system then the easiest thing to do is reinstall.

A power user might start looking for log files. You'd want to take things in small steps. Boot into a terminal. Get X running with twm. Then try getting X running with KDE. Then work on kdm.
posted by sbutler at 2:11 AM on March 9

Echoing the above. If there are no important files on the computer or you do not fancy becoming adept at linux recovery kung-fu it may be easier to reinstall.

Otherwise, as you can seem to get in as root then do so and check for file system issues (full disc, corrupt files). Then try creating a new user and logging in as them.
posted by epo at 2:20 AM on March 9