DoYouKubuntu: I don't have to reinstall?

[Red-4]

DoYouKubuntu,

I saw you post the following:
"Now, get windows and its ridiculous 'fixes'--like reinstalling the OS to fix a minor problem--out of your head! This is *not* windows. We only reinstall the OS under very dramatic circumstances--like when a new version comes out! There is almost nothing in Linux that can't be fixed by some method besides reinstallation of the OS."

I'm messaging you because I'm about to reinstall Kubuntu. I don't know what else to do. My system got stuck in a login loop (Kept returning me to password screen after entering the correct password). I can get to shell and I've tried all kinds of commands from all over the internet to try to update or fix whatever is wrong with it. I can login as root or user in the shell but startx does not load windows. This is all only from recovery environment. If I let the system boot normally it leaves an error saying something to effect of "cannot load network manager". I don't know what else to do with this thing besides reinstalling, which I really don't want to do because it's a PIA to install all the programs under linux.

Any ideas?
Thanks,
Konrad

[jlittle]

Any ideas?

Here's a few:

1. From the command line
   

   sudo apt update
   sudo apt full-upgrade

   These might find nothing, or they might dump lots of errors, or even fix things.
    
2. You could investigate system logs from the command line to find out what's going wrong. journalctl -r might be a start, or less /var/log/syslog.
    
3. You could try a Wayland session, if using X, or X if using Wayland. One chooses on the login screen.
    
4. It's possible that there's something in your home directory that's crashing the KDE startup. You said you tried startx, did you set the DISPLAY environment variable first?
   

   export DISPLAY=:0
   startx

    
5. You could add another user, to see if you can log in as that user:
   

   sudo useradd -m red5
   sudo passwd red5
   sudo adduser red5 sudo

   If you can log in as that user, you can start investigating why your normal user can't login. The culprit could be in a login script such as .profile or .bashrc, or could be something in .config or .local/share. You can track down it by renaming files and directories, and testing if a login is successful, then renaming them back. On a successful log in, and what you renamed is a directory, you go deeper by working on the contents. For files one tries to binary chop by renaming half of them, test, and with log in success rename half of that back, failure rename them all back and work on the other half. Tedious, though a focus on the plasma files in .config might be quick.

[Fred47]

If I have to spend a day researching and trying fixes or just reinstalling, I choose the old Windows approach "wipe and load" If you have a good backup it's easy enough and pretty much guarantees a successful fix.

[DoYouKubuntu]

I would definitely suggest trying jlittle's excellent advice, although personally I would start with adding a new user and trying to log in using it. If that works, the rest is easy because we now know that there's a problem with your real account--possibly a bad config file, or something like that.

See if logging in as a different user works, then post your results. We'll help you from there.

[jglen490]

There are indeed lots of ways to discover and correct errors in a Linux installation. And one of the best is to install a new user and see if the same errors occur. If the same, or most of the same errors don't occur with the new user, then it's an almost 100% certainty that the errors are due to bad, missing, or incorrectly setup configurations. On the other hand, sometimes the road to a fix, while educational and even entertaining, can be more arduous than a simple reinstall. That is one reason I keep / and /home on separate partitions. If they are NOT on separate partitions, a reload is almost guaranteed to wipe /home. It's a risk thing.

So whatever you do, even if you go through all the various fix methods being suggested here, or you reinstall, do a complete backup of whatever data, files, and configs are important to you. Even if /home is on a separate partition. One typo on an entry, one incorrectly entered copy, any human error, can result in data loss.

[DoYouKubuntu]

it's a PIA to install all the programs under linux.

It is?

On a fresh install I just open Synaptic, find and check all the programs I want, click 'apply' and wait a few seconds, and I'm good to go! Everything installed, icons/entries created in my menu, done.

For the few programs I use that aren't available via Synaptic, such as SeaMonkey, I simply place the current version where I want it and I'm done.

If you're having issues that make it seem like a PITA to install programs on Kubuntu, maybe we can help!

[jlittle]

... the errors are due to bad, missing, or incorrectly setup configurations...

For the OP's and other readers, I'd like to emphasize that it's unusual that bad configurations are due to any mistakes or missteps by the user. As a very configurable, large and sprawling, and currently developed desktop environment, KDE plasma has many bugs.

[jglen490]

I take notes before install on the stuff I have and then as DoYouKubuntu said, just run down the list in Synaptic, mash the go button, and bada bing you got it.

I only use LTS Kubuntu, so the reinstall is only once every 2 years.

[Red-4]

Thank you to all who responded. I didn't see it at first because if you go into your post from "My Started Topics" it only shows the original post until you click "Go To Post". I didn't realize that until now.
Here's the update. I ended up reinstalling Kubuntu and it's been working well until now. I thought it would be ok to plug in the drive that it's installed on to different hardware. I had heard the Linux doesn't mind that too much. I think I was wrong about that because now that I have it back to the same hardware (the only difference is I'm using onboard video instead of a GPU), it's having and issue again. This time I can load it in "safe mode", although it's called something different here. When I try to boot normally it stops with the following error: "[FAILED] Failed to start Samba NMB Daemon. I don't know what Samba is, or why it is having a problem. Any insight on this?
Thanks,
Konrad

[GreyGeek]

"Samba allows file and print sharing between computers running Microsoft Windows and computers running Unix..."
If you are sharing your Kubuntu installation with Windows then boot into the safe mode, uninstall samba and its dependencies, and then reboot.

[Red-4]

Nope, there is no Windows on that computer. I will try to uninstall Samba.

[Red-4]

I'm not sure how actually. I tried going to Discover store but when I search for Samba, there are only options to install, not uninstall. I tried commands like "uninstall Samba" or "remove Samba" that was wrong. I don't know commands for uninstalling...

[jlittle]

Nope, there is no Windows on that computer.

Typically, you'd have samba to access stuff on another computer, like a file server, such as a NAS, that's set up to "serve" Windows computers. Another typical case is a printer. The other computer doesn't necessarily run Windows, one just uses the SMB protocol to talk to it.

[GreyGeek]

If I have to spend a day researching and trying fixes or just reinstalling, I choose the old Windows approach "wipe and load" If you have a good backup it's easy enough and pretty much guarantees a successful fix.

Allow me to suggest that if you are prone to using reinstalling as a cure for problems then the next time you reinstall use the BTRFS as the root file system. That way you can create a snapshot of your system in a couple of seconds and if things go south you can roll back to the snapshot in a minute or two. Note: you have to use the manual partition route. Since you have a new HP you'll be using the GPT partition method.

[Red-4]

Typically, you'd have samba to access stuff on another computer, like a file server, such as a NAS, that's set up to "serve" Windows computers. Another typical case is a printer. The other computer doesn't necessarily run Windows, one just uses the SMB protocol to talk to it.

I didn't install Samba. Maybe it comes with the Kubuntu installation? What I don't understand is why Kubuntu can't just load up. Why does it depend on this Samba that appears to be an optional component?