[Nottingham] Odd Mandrake problems

[Martin]

Michael Erskine wrote:
> On Tuesday 06 February 2007 14:15, Richard Davies wrote:
>> She doesn't know of a local LUG I have just Googled for one and the closest
>> I can find is TASLUG in Hobart which would from memory put her about 150
>> miles away. She doesn't have a car so 300 mile round trip on the bus with
>> computer is probably not going to work.
[---]
> tried from this position: 
> 
> kill X with CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE -- the display manager may automatically 
> restart X and it might even come up OK!
> 
> Login to a virtual terminal -- switch with CTRL-ALT-F1 for vt1, CTRL-ALT-F2 
> for vt2, etc. 
> 
> Take a look at the XFree86 logs (usually in /var/log)
> 
> Kill the display manager (as root) with the appropriate init script 
> in /etc/init.d/.
> 
> With the display manager suitably culled we can start X on its own with the 
> startx command whilst logged into a virtual terminal. Then we can see if 
> XFree86 is fine. At this point your friend may be up and running.

Phew! That looks and sounds /very/ /scary/ for any Linux neophyte, let
alone a complete "computer illiterate"...

I'd suggest the LiveCD approach to at least retrieve the data.

The next big step could be a modem hook-up and a long distance remote
hack!... Just being able to ssh into the thing would be a huge help.


Good luck,
Martin

-- 
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Martin Lomas
martin at ml1.co.uk
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