starting dsl (please help)


Forum: HD Install
Topic: starting dsl (please help)
started by: badatcomputers

Posted by badatcomputers on May 25 2006,00:10
HI, I am new to linux.  I recently installed it to a toshiba tecra laptop that had windows xp (but ran very slowly). Originally I used smart boot manager (http://btmgr.webframe.org/) to boot from a cd, since my laptop does not boot from the cd drive on its own (not even an option in bios).  I then installed dsl to the hard drive. I restarted it worked fine, allright, I enabled apt and got icewm, then tried deleting it.
That was the problem, I'm an idiot and I think I deleted an important file for starting up the computer.

Here is the problem:
 When I start the computer grub loads and i start DSL.  Everything goes fine, it autoconfigs devices and even starts to load the desktop, but then it stops loading and says this:
"/home/dsl/.xinitrc: line 7: /opt/bin/iecewm-session: No such file or directory"
"waiting for X server to shut down"
"dsl ~$ ->"

So it doesn't successfully start up.  I would like to get this working, what can I do.  Is there a way to edit the .xinitrc so that it doesnt try starting up icewm?  I have nothing else to work with on this computer, it only has dsl, but I was hoping it was still fixable because it gives me the command promt thing (dsl ~$ ->).  So yeah, I was hoping I could just fix the .xinitrc or boot from the cd somehow using grub, or cd /cdrom or something???
I know nothing about linux or computers (hence the username)  and I would really appreciate help.  Thanks!

Posted by kerry on May 25 2006,00:39
You can type " nano /home/dsl/.xinitrc " to edit it.
or
type " cp /etc/skel/,xinitrc /home/dsl/.xinitrc " to put a copy of the original back.

Posted by badatcomputers on May 25 2006,17:47
Hey thanks!  That worked well!  now it works.
One more problem, prolly an easy fix??
  When dls loads the desktop icons load, then disappear right away.  When I click on Desktop>full enhanced desktop, the images appear again, but then dissappear right away.  How can I fix it so they stay up??
      Thanks so much for your help so far!!

Posted by mikshaw on May 25 2006,18:01
Try running the command xtdesk from aterm and see if you receive any error messages.  It's most likely a *.lnk file in /home/dsl/.xtdesktop that is pointing to a nonexistent or unreadable image file.  Another possibility is that you were in a directory other than /home/dsl when you started the X server...some of the *.lnk files may use a relative path to their images. You can usually tell when you open terminal from the menu, it should have "~" as the current directory
Posted by badatcomputers on May 26 2006,02:23
ok.........
"can't access file '.xtdesktop/xterm.gif' "

now what, do I just delete the file or what?
thanks a ton!!

Posted by mikshaw on May 26 2006,11:42
You can delete it, the *.lnk file which points to '.xtdesktop/xterm.gif' that is.  You could optionally edit the file to point to a file that actually exists, such as /home/dsl/.xtdesktop/Aterm.png.  Or you could remove everything from .xtdesktop and replace them with the contents of /etc/skel/.xtdesktop to revert to the original set of icons.
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