Killed kdm trying to change resolutions on HP dv5035nr

[calibre97]

I think I messed up.
HP Pavilion dv5035nr, 1.5GB RAM, 74GB drive, ATI Radeon Xpress 200M. Kubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.24.18, KDE 3.5something.

I was noticing horribly slow performance while on battery power. I set the Battery Monitor to CPU Policy of Performance, but it still reported 800MHz instead of 1.6GHz. I last installed an ATI proprietary driver but things were working fine while plugged in. I noticed in System Settings for Display that the LCD was detected as type "Plug n Play". I tried changing that to "LCD 1280x800" which is the native resolution. When I rebooted, the resolution was 1024x768. Squished and ugly. So I went back into System Settings and changed it back to "Plug n Play" and rebooted.

And kaboom. Here's what happens:
1. Message on screen says "Starting up..."
2. Kubuntu banner comes up with progress bar that turns blue as it goes across the screen.
3. "Starting K Display Manager kdm" appears for a second...
4. Screen flicks to some seriously screwed up colors then flicks back to kdm start messages.
5. Screen flicks to black with grey with an "X" cursor in the middle for a second then flicks back to kdm start messages.
6. Screen flicks to black for a microsecond and then back to messages which stop.

I hit Ctrl+Alt+F1 to get to a log in and that's where I am now. I have Windows XP MCE and openSUSE 11 available from System Commander.

I obviously corrupted the crap out of something. I don't have access to a network right now so I can't do any "apt-get"s or anything to reinstall something.

=Where do I start with what logs or files whose contents you wonderful geniuses need to see to get me back to working? :-)

Update: I just typed "start x" for the heck of it ad here's what I get:
...(stuff)
(==) log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", time and date
(==) Using config file: /etc/X11/xorg.conf"
(WW) fglrx: no matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:1:5:0) found

Backtrace:
0: /usr/bin/X11/X(xf86SigHandler+0x7e) [0x80c780e]
1: [0xb7f6e420]
2: /usr/bin/X11/X(InitOutput+0x6fc) [0x80aa12c]
3: /usr/bin/X11/X(main+0x296) [0x8074526]
4. /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xe0) [0xb7d01450]
5: /usr/bin/X11/X(FontFileCompleteXLFD+0x201) [0x8073a91]

Fatal server error:
Caught signal 11. Server aborting

giving up.
xinit: Connection reset by peer (errno 104): unable to connect to X server
xinit: No such process (errno 3): Server error.

and back to prompt. I have a backup (done with Ghost 14 while booted under XP) from before I did a bunch of updates and messing around with bluetooth (almost got KitchenSync to connect to my Nokia 6126 but that's another story) so worst comes to worst, I can do a restore to that point and try again.

Still, I'd appreciate any help/advice anyone can give me on what's going on here and what happened. How can I try to fix the sluuuuuuuugish performance while on battery without trying different things? Performance is fine while plugged in. It's just while on battery that it's unbearable.

Any way I can try to get back up and running with what I've got or should I just chuck it and try restoring and going again?

[dibl]

Re: Killed kdm trying to change resolutions on HP dv5035nr

I'd try two things before resorting to the desperate measures. Get entirely out of X and shut down the X server, either by booting Recovery Console or from the desktop with Ctrl-Alt-F1 and then logging in and issuing

sudo /etc/init.d/kdm stop

Then do these:

1.

sudo dpkg-reconfigure kdm

2.

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

Good luck.

[calibre97]

Re: Killed kdm trying to change resolutions on HP dv5035nr

OK, done. Although, after running the stop command, I was stuck with an underscore blinking in the upper left-hand corner so I Ctrl+Alt+1'd again to then run the dpkg-reconfigure options. I did the X configure stuff and then once I was back to a prompt, I typed "sudo startx" and up it came!!!

Sort of.

It was slow, again, and some of the system tray items aren't there and when I clicked the "K" to try rebooting, I eventually see my menu but an error dialog appears "Error-Kdesudo" in the title with text of "Command not found!" in the dialog.

I finally get the K menu to go up and stay up so I can click Logout. There's no Restart or Shutdown options. Just a button for "Logout" so I clicked that and am waiting for the system to stop...and there it is. I'm at a console prompt now. I'm going to try rebooting to see what happens.

[calibre97]

Re: Killed kdm trying to change resolutions on HP dv5035nr

OK, this is interesting. I did "sudo shutdown -h now" from CLI and it stopped. I powered up and selected Kubuntu and got to the login screen just like normal. I typed in my login and password and hit Enter and then...

_____________________________________________
(X) The following installation problem was detected
while trying to start KDE:

No write access to '/home/calibre97/.ICEauthority'.

KDE is unable to start.

[ OK ]
_____________________________________________

So I clicked OK and then this appears in the upper left:
"Could not start ksmserver. Check your installation.
[okay]"

So I click okay and get dropped back to the login screen.

UPDATE:
I selected Restart X Server but that didn't do anything so I went with Console Login and did a "sudo chmod 666 .ICEauthority" then restarted.

I got past the login screen and this time no .ICEauthority error but I still get a "Kdesudo command not found" error.

Interesting....CPU rate is now 2200Hz (my last estimate of 1.6 was off obviously).

[dibl]

Re: Killed kdm trying to change resolutions on HP dv5035nr

Yeah, I remember that ICEauthority bug. If you search on it, you can probably learn about it.

It sounds like you need to remove or rename the hidden .kde folder that is in your home directory, and then restart your system. When you log back in, you should get a "clean" KDE desktop, meaning you will have lost all your custom settings. But all your data should be fine.

So, in CLI mode navigate to /home/calibre97, and find the folder named ".kde" and either rename it to something else, or delete it. If you have KDE e-mail or contacts, I think they're in there so you'd better just rename it. If you rename it to "kde_bak" or something like that, then you can get your personal stuff out of it later.

mv .kde kde_bak

Once it it renamed, log out, shutdown, and restart. You should be able to log in to the GUI and get a clean KDE desktop.

[calibre97]

Re: Killed kdm trying to change resolutions on HP dv5035nr

Ah yes, I see several other folks encountered it as well.

Screw that, though! ;-). I ain't starting over. So what I did is rebooted yet again and this time, no errors on startup.

I still have the ridiculous sluggishness though when on battery, and for now I'm running out of battery so I'll have to shut it down. Looks like I was able to recover, though, so thanks for your help.

Now on to the damn KitchenSync-no-connect-to-Nokia6126 barrel of monkeys.