Clinton Post wrote:
On Friday, My Suse 9.3 loaded into a grey screen with the Suse Lizard on it. My only option is to login, so I did. Once I logged in, I cannot reboot or shutdown the computer with out using a term window. The only option is to log off wich brings me back to the grey screen. I was told by a friend who had the same problem that it is the TWM login screen. We both just reloaded our machines, which becomes a hassal. I am very new to the linux world and Suse and would like to know what to do in the future if this was to happen again. I use Gnome desktop.
Also, my desktop picture changed. Could my system do that our have been Hacked?????
Any input will be helpful.
I had a similar problem for awhile right after an install and managed to fix it (I think). I wish I could tell you how I fixed it, but I really don't know. I just started wading through the init scripts and config files, changing things here and there, until I could get it to work consistently. Solving the problem is exacerbated by the fact that (it seems to me) suse tries to fix things by itself and changes the configuration files; these "fixes" would undo the changes I made in the scripts and config files and bring the problem back again. This just goes to the point that there's probably not one small thing to do to fix the problem; rather, it's likely that there's a few problems. What video card do you have (make and model)? Do you have the correct driver loaded? Can you correctly configure your video card with yast2? (yast2 can be run from a console if, as it seems, you can't get into X.) (yast2 can't correctly configure my video card, an ATI Radeon 9000. So I had to configure this manually in /etc/X11/xorg. You might have to do something similar.) Do you have a file called "/usr/X11R6/bin/gnome"? If so, look for a line which starts "DEFAULT_WM=" in /etc/sysconfig/windowmanager; this should be set to "gnome" (if, as you say, you wish to run the gnome window manager). There's probably a few other things which need to be worked out, but this is a start and, who knows, may fix your problem. Finally, yes, fixing the problem you have might require digging into some of the thicker parts of the OS and understanding shell and init scripts. You might need some pretty good problem-solving skills... probably all of this. If you're not ready for this and the few tips I've provided don't help, you might want to switch to a different distribution. Mandrake/Mandriva is pretty good. In fact, if I can't solve my reboot hanging pretty soon, I might go back to Mandrake myself. hth.
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-- A lot of us are working harder than we want, at things we don't like to do. Why? ...In order to afford the sort of existence we don't care to live. -- Bradford Angier