Cannot start KDE desktop

[scottmetent]

I have an IBM ThinkPad T40 which I recently upgraded from Feisty to Gutsy (which appeared to work), however in my efforts to get Compiz working, I seem to have managed to completely bork KDE (or perhaps KDM).

Briefly the symptoms are that the system boots and shows the KDM login panel. I can enter my password but the KDE startup graphics never appear - the screen remains blank, showing just the pointer. If I try to load a different window manager (I installed Gnome and fluxbox), they don't load either, but in those cases the screen eventually flips back to the login panel.

I don't see anything revealing in the system log (/var/log/messages).

I have run "dpkg-reconfigure -a" in an attempt to reset things - this has not helped.

I should say that I also had a problem with a tight loop displaying the error message "device-mapper: table: 254:1: linear: dm-linear: Device lookup failed" which was reported here and which in common with other reports, was fixed by removing evms. (I don't use RAID on a laptop - why was it even installed?)

I would really like to get some graphical environment working again! Any advice please?

[dibl]

Re: Cannot start KDE desktop

I would make a backup copy of my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, and then run the configuration script to make a VESA display (aka "fits 'em all").

So, at that dysfunctional login prompt just do Ctrl-Alt-F1 and get a console with text prompt. Log in, and then do

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

The first screen is tricky. If Gutsy auto-configured your GUI satisfactorily, you can try "YES" to auto-detect, and then on the second screen choose your display type. But, if it all goes South again, then the next time you run the script, choose "NO" to auto-detect and choose "VESA" as the display type. Then finish the script, and choose a comfortable resolution like 1024 x 768 (depending on what your video chip can do), and refresh rates within the ranges for your LCD or CRT. When you finish the script, it will dump you back to the CLI. At the prompt you can enter

startx

and you should get a familiar GUI.

Good luck!

[scottmetent]

Re: Cannot start KDE desktop

Thanks for the advice dibl, I have made a little progress but things are still not as they should be.

I logged into to a console session and ran "sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg" as you suggested. I chose a VESA adapter type rather than the auto-detected ATI FireGL thing (which AFAIK was correctly detected), then ran "startx". What I get is what looks like a Gnome desktop, but with no window manager. I can run graphical programs but basically only one at a time.

Any recommendations on how to reinstate the window manager (and then ideally to revert to KDE)?