[TriLUG] Graphical Login Help (FIXED)

[Paul D. Boyle]

Hi All,

I had written earlier today:
> I am migrating one of my systems from Redhat 6.x to SuSE 7.3.  Initially
> there was a nice graphical login (I assume kdm), but in diddling with
> the system I have broken something.

I found the problem, and even fixed it! For the sake of the trilug
knowledge base here is what the problem was (distribution SuSE 7.3):
Summary:  A symbolic link from a real file to a partition which did not
get properly mounted resulted in the file being truncated to zero length.


real file:

/etc/opt/kde2/share/config/kdm/kdmrc

and the link:

/opt/kde2/share/config/kdm/kdmrc
/opt/kde2/share/config/kdm/kdmrc

When  I didn't properly mount my /opt partition somehow the real kdmrc

should be living.  I went there and saw it had zero length.  This didn't
seem right.  I went to a colleagues lab where there was another SuSE 7.3
box and saw that the kdmrc file on this box was about 2k long.  I emailed
this file to my computer, put it in the proper place, and rebooted.
Voila! now the pretty login is back.

One conceptual error I had:  I assumed the X server would start before
the display manager.  This is not so, {x,k,g}dm starts and this process,
in turn, invokes the X server.  I guess it makes sense in retrospect.

Paul

-- 
Paul D. Boyle			    |	boyle at laue.chem.ncsu.edu
Director, X-ray Structural Facility |	phone: (919) 515-7362
Department of Chemistry - Box 8204  |	FAX:   (919) 515-5079
North Carolina State University     | 
Raleigh, NC, 27695-8204
http://laue.chem.ncsu.edu/web/xray.welcome.html