Changed repo to "kde" from "kde4", but now kde crashes

[Mateo1041]

Hi all,

Since I no longer saw "kde4" in the repository, I changed my synaptic repository setting to "kde" instead.  Only problem though, my laptop now crashes upon boot.  :-(  I see a generic localhost login screen and then a frozen command prompt that's inside a tiny version of the screen.  It appears to then be locked up.  I can use safe made, but that's all.  Typing "xstart" just locked it up again like above.  It also appears I do not have internet via safe mode.

Any ideas?  I'm not quite sure how to proceed and only wanted to be sure I was completely up to date.  Typing on a phone to post my question also really sucks.  :-(

Thanks for any help you guys can offer.

- Matt

[Old-Polack]

Hi all,

Since I no longer saw "kde4" in the repository, I changed my synaptic repository setting to "kde" instead.  Only problem though, my laptop now crashes upon boot.  :-(  I see a generic localhost login screen and then a frozen command prompt that's inside a tiny version of the screen.  It appears to then be locked up.  I can use safe made, but that's all.  Typing "xstart" just locked it up again like above.  It also appears I do not have internet via safe mode.

Any ideas?  I'm not quite sure how to proceed and only wanted to be sure I was completely up to date.  Typing on a phone to post my question also really sucks.  :-(

Thanks for any help you guys can offer.

- Matt

Changing the setting in Synaptic has nothing to do with your laptop crashing on boot. What else did you do?

[Mateo1041]

That's it.  :-(  I then reloaded, marked all, and updated.  There were quite a few updates made.  Only other thing I can think of is that I've been displaying on an external monitor recently and hadn't been able to get it to recognize that as the default.

[Old-Polack]

That's it.  :-(  I then reloaded, marked all, and updated.  There were quite a few updates made.  Only other thing I can think of is that I've been displaying on an external monitor recently and hadn't been able to get it to recognize that as the default.

Have you tried booting with the external monitor attached? You may have gotten your wish.

[Mateo1041]

Yeah, it's been hooked up the entire time.  But the default to display to external still doesn't work.  All boots start on the laptop screen instead.

[kjpetrie]

Sounds as if you've done an incomplete upgrade from KDE 4.6.5 to whatever it is now (KDE 4.9.x I think but I'm on 64-bit at the moment so haven't got the latest upgrade) and lost kdm in the process. With a lot of work you can recover (I hope the forum threads about the 4.6.5 - 4.8.2 upgrade have survived the latest purge) though as you've actually skipped an upgrade it might be a little bit more complicated.

My first question is: have you got /home on a separate partition?
My second is: How many extra applications have you added?
My third is: is it a standard user's install or have you set up lots of customised scripts and server configurations?

It might make more sense to download the latest iso and re-install without formatting /home than trying to solve your broken KDE unless there would be several days' work rebuilding a highly unusual system.