[YLUG] Update fedora 10

[Patrick Dupre]

> On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 8:18 PM, Patrick Dupre <pd520 at york.ac.uk> wrote:
>> Hi Mike,
>>
>
>>> prevent it from running? Or when the X crash happened did you then
>>> login as root to tty1 without X and try to force startx? This sounds
>>> like you never did get firstboot to run?  Please confirm.  If this is
>>> the case how did you create the non-root user(s)?
>>
>> You are right, I guess that I did never run firstboot.
>> How I do it now ?
>
> Well you may be able to change the parameters in the file
> /etc/sysconfig/firstboot and reboot. (i.e. make it say YES and not NO)
> - however see below as I believe you may have messed up your user area
> so that a login screen may be either corrupt or impossible to load.
>
> i.e. I suspect that you have more problems than just not running firstboot.
When I run firstboot
X configuration,
the screen just freeze (similar like startx)
How can I try to debug the xorg.conf ?
What would be a xorg.conf file with the minimum things, ie. I would like
to get a xorg.conf which may have a change to work in case that the
one generated by X -configure is not correct.
Is their any way to have a minium graphic mode like VGA. In the past it
was possible.
Regards

>
>> Right now, I only log in root, but I created manually an user
>> (editing passwd). The result of startx is similar.
>
> You cannot add a user by editing passwd alone - there are a series of
> coupled sets of parameters that need to be modified in files in /etc
> when a user is added - you need lines in passwd, group, shadow and
> gshadow and unless you know what you are doing I would suggest you do
> not do it that way at all - and in addition you need the correct set
> of starting files in the user area in /home/your-user-name  so the
> proper way to do this is to run as root the appropriate command to
> create a new user:
> useradd -c "Full Name" your-user
>
> where Full Name is whatever name you like the user to have, and the
> login name is what you choose as your-user,
> then once the system has created the new user then do as root
> passwd your-user
> and set a password.
>
> This will properly set up the new user area and the appropriate set of
> login files.
>
> I don't know at what stage or how you added the nomodeset parameter
> but be warned that trying many different approaches may alter the
> system files such that the system breaks and possibly in ways that are
> difficult to diagnose unless someone who knows what they are doing is
> able to login and investigate.  However it is very important to relate
> everything that was done along the way to the point where you found
> the system did not work.  If you leave information out about what you
> did that may have broken something then others who are unaware of what
> you did not report may then not give you appropriate advice.
>
> It is possible that by trying to create a new user the wrong way then
> the login manager will break sufficiently that you then cannot get the
> login manager to give you anything on the screen and it is possible
> that this is the main cause of your inability to get a screen display
> rather than any issue with X.  However at the point where your install
> did not properly complete you had an incomplete system - and without
> knowing exactly what else you did might screw the system up enough
> that remote diagnosis becomes impossible.
>
> Certainly simply editing /etc/passwd will mess up your system and gdm
> may not now know how to handle the broken user area .... if you kept a
> copy of the original /etc/passwd I would suggest you reinstate it.
> You also need to have the correct permissions on that file and also
> the correct security context (for SElinux). If you broke any of those
> then you are likely not to have gsm give you a login screen.
>
> I am now unsure whether by trying to revert your broken user files
> will actually get you running again - playing with system files as
> root when you don't understand the system is gonig to lead you into
> trouble and quite possibly break your system irrespective of any
> problems with X.
>
>
>

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  Patrick DUPRÉ                      |   |
  Department of Chemistry            |   |    Phone: (44)-(0)-1904-434384
  The University of York             |   |    Fax:   (44)-(0)-1904-432516
  Heslington                         |   |
  York YO10 5DD  United Kingdom      |   |    email: pd520 at york.ac.uk
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