Kernel error

[callumacrae]

Sorry, I'm not sure what forum this should be in.

I installed fedora yesterday, and it seemed to work fine. It installed a gigabytes worth of updates. I then installed some more software, had a small play around, and restarted. It wouldn't let me log in. When I got my password right it acted as if it was logging in, but then the screen went black and it went back to the login screen. When I get it wrong it acts like normal. I booted up from the live CD, and after about 5 minutes it said there was an error with the kernel. I wasn't connected to the internet at the time, and I couldn't see any way of saving it. I've booted from the live CD several times to try and get the error again, but it hasn't come back. It also is still not letting me log in.

If anyone could help I would be extremely grateful, as I need it for coursework.

Thanks,
~Callum

[callumacrae]

I also randomly have a REALLY wobbly cursor.

[callumacrae]

Bump.

Will reformatting fix this?

[A.P.F.]

I am far from a Linux expert, but I have installed many an OS. What I would do first, is to verify the integrity of your Fedora media via an MD5 check sum. Next, I would check your RAM to be sure that you don't have a bad stick. Finally, I would reinstall the OS.

[markdk]

Not much help, but trying to work out where the error is.

At the login screen use CTRL-ALT-F2 (switch to tty2). That will give you a command line login prompt. If you can login from there with your userid it elimates any probs with the userid setup. If you can login its not a userid issue, or if it is errors will hopefully be on the screen inseatd of hidden by the gui. (At any time CTRL-ALT-F1 (back to tty1) will take you back to the GUI login on FC11).

Then from the command line you logged into 'su -' to root with whatever password you gave root and see if there is anything in any of the /var/log/messages* files that recorded the error that occurred.
A 'tail -1000 /var/log/messages | more' will let you page through the last 1000 messages, just look for where it looked like it was last rebooted and look for errors after that (which admitedly will be difficult as a lot of errors are normal, so try to delay any gui login for a few minutes after a boot so you can use the gap in timestamps to determine what errors are login ones and what are unrelated).

Also while logged on as root at the command line a 'yum update' would be a good thing to try to pull down lots more updates in case there is an issue with the installed packages that has already been resolved.

If you don'thave any probs with the command line login you might want to look at changing the default runlevel from 5 to 3 in /etc/inittab which would boot your system into command line mode always rather that the GUI which might make it easier for you to see any error messages. In /etc/inittab
id:5:initdefault:
becomes
id:3:inittdefault
for the period you are diagnosing futher. When the problem is resolved you can change it back.

If you do boot in command line mode from inittab you can always start X from the command line once logged in with 'startx' which will give you an idea of whether it is X-windows or one of the gui components causing the issue.

Not much help sorry. But at least it will confirm the login works ok and you will be able to login and look for error messages instead of being thrown out by the gui all the time.

[markdk]

Id go with the get in on the command line window and do a yum update
Looking at a few other posts the issue with login not working seems to have been identified already and presumably will be fixed shortly. While it may not be your issue, it also could be, and may fix your problem when updates are available.
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=230157

[markdk]

Sorry I didn't look hard enough. Have a look at this one also.
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=230153
It suggests a yum downgrade for a specific package rather that the upgrade I suggested.

[tmick]

What is the error message from the kernel?
If you do the command prompt idea, what are the results of the commands 'dmesg' and 'uname -ar' and 'cat /proc/cpuinfo' and 'lspci -vvv' ?

[callumacrae]

Fixed, I downgrade X11.

Thank you

~Callum