[SOLVED] Total newbie... fatal mistake?

[ppk55]

Hi I recently moved from Windows to Ubuntu. Even though I was satisfied with Gnome I wanted to try out KDE to see if I would like it better. I followed the instructions I found here : http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/kde. When asked, I chose to switch to kdm instead of gdm. Now my [extremely stupid] problem is that with gdm there was something that remembered my login name and allowed me to just click on it and enter the password. I had grown accustomed to that and turns out I forgot what the login was... And now kdm doesn't 'remember' it and asks me to type it in to log in. And what's weird is that I'm pretty certain it was simply my name, straight up, without funny characters or anything but I've tried every potential variation of it and it still won't log in.

What can I do? Is there a way to revert to gdm without logging in or to get kdm to give me a list of available login names?

Or maybe I'm screwed?

EDIT:
It's not the end of the world : I did a big back up last night. So I guess I can just re-install it and get it running like I want it to within 1-2 hours but hopefully there will be an alternative to that.

[The Liquidator]

Re: Total newbie... fatal mistake?

By default during the installation (unless you picked something else) your login name will simply be your first name

That help?

[ppk55]

Re: Total newbie... fatal mistake?

Nope. Already tried.

I've tried a bunch of variations too (caps lock on/off... with or without the last name... with or without the first name...) and no luck.

I'm downloading the kubuntu boot cd now and I guess I'll just re-install... Raawh. Frustration.

[The Liquidator]

Re: Total newbie... fatal mistake?

Unless you did something fancy during the installation routine, your user name will be the same as it is in your home directory, and in the same case.

[The Liquidator]

Re: Total newbie... fatal mistake?

If you cannot sort you can always try this:

Ensure you have a wired connection

Reboot your machine and immediately after the BIOS post (i.e when you see the GRUB text appear) hit escape (or it might be shift for ubuntu). From the selection pick a recovery mode. You will be taken to a menu one of which is a root prompt (pick the with networking preferably).

At the root prompt type

apt-get remove kdm

and then once that has done you can for good measure type

apt-get reinstall gdm

After it has finished type reboot and the PC will restart and on reboot you should be taken via GDM into gnome. Not guaranteed but it's your best hope I thing.

[ppk55]

Re: Total newbie... fatal mistake?

HA ! Nice.

I remembered the name from the home directory was ''dude''... no wonder I couldn't log in with my name! I guess I was confused cause the gdm login screen showed me my name and not that. Thanks !

[The Liquidator]

Re: Total newbie... fatal mistake?

Great stuff, welcome dude and enjoy Kubuntu!

Please can you mark the thread as "solved" in case it helps others?

Thanks

[ppk55]

Re: [SOLVED] Total newbie... fatal mistake?

No problemo.