distro cant go further than command line

[almusalimalmusalimah]

hello everyone

there is a problem with my friend on his desktop

he say he cant go further than command line unless here write

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startx

and after that

he can restore the whole desktop but there will be no any responding for either of his computer keyboard or the mouse

so why the distro stopped in the commandline screen and didnt go further and open the kde-desktop ui

[JoesCat]

The graphical (GNome, KDE, or other desktops) run on top of a driver known as Xwindows.

When the install was done, the install does a best-guess as to what video card driver and keyboard drivers are required to make this all work okay.

When you indicate the graphics, keyboard and mouse are not working, I would guess you are running a laptop computer, and not a desktop computer, and the install either guessed wrong for what to insert for Xwindows, or you may have chosen (manually), the wrong configuration.

My recommendations right now would be:
1) To update your BIOS for your computer to the latest version. Make sure you choose the version hosted on the manufacturer's website, not some other website since there is the possibility of adding something questionable on your computer you would not want.

2) If you installed from the Mageia1 live distro, and it functioned okay as a live distro, but did not function okay on the installed version, then we know Mageia will work okay, but the install process needs a modification to fix it's best-guess to make sure it includes what is needed. This is best done by starting a bug report because you want this fixed for yourself (and for other users who may have similar computers like your own - consider yourself a pioneer here).

3) If you are willing to try, now would be a good time to "test" the Mageia 2 Alpha that is available, because this is the best time to catch these sorts of quirks "now". If you find that the graphics doesn't work on the Alpha, then send a bug report as soon as you can.

4) If you are simply installing, and not too interested in the eye-candy like compiz or using the drivers specific to your brand of videocard, I would simply recommend choosing Vesa-generic when you get to the choice of choosing graphics card (during the install phase).

5) If you want to follow-up on this bug you have right now, I think the best thing to do is start a bug report. In the bug report, you'll be asked for some details like, before you type "startx" can you please try these commands .....

[almusalimalmusalimah]

neither of your suggestions is the truth about what happen with my friend

all what he said is the distro was installed on a desktop not laptop

and after useing it for some times (( more than week and so on ))

he got this problem

=====================

i am curious for what he done to his distro ......

distros cant have such a problem like that unless you do something wrong to its configurations ..... or you have a bad update that you installed it from third party

but i cant say that things to him unless i have a prove to him

[JoesCat]

all what he said is the distro was installed on a desktop not laptop and after using it for some times (( more than week and so on ))

Okay, thanks for the info.
I assumed it was a new install and you got stuck at that point.

From what you describe, I could think of two possibilities.

1) Your friend is using a video card that makes use of a proprietary binary blob. Cards like ATI, NVidia, Intel, etc, etc, etc, have binary blobs provided by the manufacturers of those cards. Mageia, Mandriva, usually take advantage of those blobs because it provides added eyecandy such as being able to do some added features. It may be possible that your friend got an update, and the blob got replaced with one that doesn't work. If that is the case, your friend should start a bug report, since this is a bug that should be fixed for "everybody" that has that type of card.

2) Your friend is doing stuff as a root super user. Ubuntu went to great lengths to hide "root". In Mageia, it's a bit more easily accessible. If your friend is using root, it is a habit that needs to be reduced, because it's possible to mess stuff up much easier as root. Think of Window with Admin and limited accounts. In Windows it's difficult to have a usable computer as a limited user, so it is understandable if this habit continues into linux, but in linux, a lot more is stuff is workable as a limited normal user. If you use Root, it's a habit you need to reduce so you don't mess yourself up.

If you installed Mageia using the DVD, and it was working okay before, I would recommend using the DVD as a recovery disk. Simply insert the DVD and reboot as if you are going to install. On the question where it asks, fresh install or upgrade, choose upgrade. Make sure you do not wipe and partitions if you get to any such questions since you are not doing a fresh install. This should recover you back to your original point. If you had trouble with graphics, I'd choose another graphics card choice in that menu (Vesa generic).

Once recovered, you should have everything working again. Now, if you do an update, and end up in the same problem, then there is a bug that needs fixing. Something wrong with the update needs fixing.

[Ken-Bergen]

If you installed Mageia using the DVD, and it was working okay before, I would recommend using the DVD as a recovery disk. Simply insert the DVD and reboot as if you are going to install. On the question where it asks, fresh install or upgrade, choose upgrade. Make sure you do not wipe and partitions if you get to any such questions since you are not doing a fresh install. This should recover you back to your original point.

Doing an update install will sometimes work if the system won't boot but it will not replace installed packages with older versions so it's not really helpful in this case.
The reason the system boots to run level 3 instead of run level 5 needs to be found and relaying information from a friend is wide open to errors and misinterpretation.

[dubigrasu]

Some things to try:

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init 3

followed by:

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init 5

to verify the run-level issue.

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drakxconf

to reconfigure the (possible wrong?) video driver and find a usable configuration, also to instruct the system to automatically start the graphical interface.

Eventually the /etc/X11/xorg.conf can be removed, reboot and let the system auto-configure itself again.

[doktor5000]

@JoesCat: Please don't recommend reporting bugs in every case, bugs should only be reported if they are clearly reproducable.
Also doing structured, target-oriented support should be done. Your help is really appreciated, but it should be done in a proper way,
for reasons Ken-Bergen noted already.

In this case best bet would be to see the output of

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chkconfig --list dm

as root to see if the x server is configured to run in runlevel 5 and the output of

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grep initdefault: /etc/inittab

to see which is the standard runlevel to which the system boots and most helpful would be /var/log/Xorg.0.log
to see why the x server fails to start.

Best general bet would be to run drakx11 as root, select Xorg vesa as driver,
ensure in the options that X server should be automatically started and reboot.

[almusalimalmusalimah]

Mr.doctor5000

these the results

======================

as for the

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chkconfig --list dm

he got

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Note: This outputshows SysV services only and does not include native systemd services
SysV configuration data might be overriden by native systemd configuration

dm                 0:off    1:off    2:off    3:off    4:off    5:on    6:off    7:on

==============================

and as the

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grep initdefault: /etc/inittab

he got

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id:5:initdefault

[doktor5000]

and most helpful would be /var/log/Xorg.0.log
to see why the x server fails to start.

Best general bet would be to run drakx11 as root, select Xorg vesa as driver,
ensure in the options that X server should be automatically started and reboot.

[almusalimalmusalimah]

ah...... Mr.doctor5000

how he can give you what is inside

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/var/log/Xorg.0.log

in the command line

becasue the answer of that command line will be

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Permission denied

so how can he do that

=============================

and why vesa driver while the right driver for his computer hardware at installation of the distro was

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SiS old-series based card

[Ken-Bergen]

ah...... Mr.doctor5000

how he can give you what is inside

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/var/log/Xorg.0.log

in the command line

becasue the answer of that command line will be

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Permission denied

so how can he do that

/var/log/Xorg.0.log is a file so it's not executable

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cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log >> /home/your-friend/Xorg.0.log.txt

will work, then attach the file to a post.

Doktor5000, I admire your willingness to help but isn't it time that the friend of a friend's second cousin's wife's uncle's friend register here to eliminate the middleman?

[almusalimalmusalimah]

Doktor5000, I admire your willingness to help

all the members here not just you admire his Patience .... and all the other adminstrator like him

but isn't it time that the friend of a friend's second cousin's wife's uncle's friend register here to eliminate the middleman?

it will be so so easy if he can speak english

you crack me up man

i already knew that this way to solving the problem will be in a hard way ..... but what can you do with the reality if its like that

[doktor5000]

and why vesa driver while the right driver for his computer hardware at installation of the distro was

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SiS old-series based card

Right driver maybe, but seems it isn't working, or else the xserver would load, no?
Vesa is a really basic driver which works with all graphics cards, allowing you at least
to sucessfully start the xserver and continue from there on.

[Ken-Bergen]

it will be so so easy if he can speak english

you crack me up man

i already knew that this way to solving the problem will be in a hard way ..... but what can you do with the reality if its like that

I never thought of language problems, having come from Mandriva where the forum is available in many languages I just assumed that the Mageia forum had a similar structure.

[merlin]

Did the kernel version change during the updates ? This can cause the X server to fail as the new kernel lacks the required video drivers including X mouse and X keyboard drivers. For example, with nVidia, a new video driver has to be built for each kernel version.

When you attempt to boot the system, does the grub boot screen show multiple kernel versions in the menu ? Try selecting the other (older) kernels, does the graphics now work ?

[doktor5000]

Did the kernel version change during the updates ? This can cause the X server to fail as the new kernel lacks the required video drivers including X mouse and X keyboard drivers. For example, with nVidia, a new video driver has to be built for each kernel version.

In that particular case, the xserver would show a message at startup like this:

Nvidia driver failed to load. Nouveau driver is instead being used instead

and the xserver would start normally, using nouveau driver as a fallback.

I've already suggested using the vesa driver, but there was no reply since from the OP ...

[merlin]

Did the kernel version change during the updates ? This can cause the X server to fail as the new kernel lacks the required video drivers including X mouse and X keyboard drivers. For example, with nVidia, a new video driver has to be built for each kernel version.

In that particular case, the xserver would show a message at startup like this:

Nvidia driver failed to load. Nouveau driver is instead being used instead

and the xserver would start normally, using nouveau driver as a fallback.

I've already suggested using the vesa driver, but there was no reply since from the OP ...

Actually, I had a problem that the nVidia driver was built without kernel module versioning due to dkms performing "make mrproper" (twice) that wipes out all the module version info from my custom kernel. The system does not fallback to using the Nouveau driver in this case. I had to hack dkms to prevent "make mrproper" being called. This is a long standing bug. However, this is unlikely to be the issue of the original report.

[almusalimalmusalimah]

I've already suggested using the vesa driver, but there was no reply since from the OP ...

actually there was a reply to me from him

he said

there was just a file called

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Xorg.0.log.old

and there is nothing there called

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Xorg.0.log

so .... i sugeested to him to do what you told me Mr. Doctor5000

and i am waiting for another reply from him since then

******

so ....... i say ....... do you think the distro cant go further because there is no such file called

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Xorg.0.log

[doktor5000]

That's only a logfile, and not the reason that the xserver doesn't start, it's a result.