Old system hanging at GUI start with Sessiontype:

[Brian MasinickModerator]

I’m almost certain I’ve seen this before, but I repeatedly searched both our site and the Internet and if the discussion and solution is out there, I’m sorry I missed it because I did try for quite a while to locate any information about this.

Here’s the situation: my regular Lenovo Thinkpad works fine, but I was trying to reinstall antiX 26 on one of my older systems.
I actually got it working for a little while, but upon one of the reboots it started hanging once the GUI attempts to start with a green messsage saying only Sessiontype:

I am able to exit to a command line and run commands, and I’ve tried many things, including reinstalling xorg, copying /etc/skel configurations to the default account (I’m using demo on this one) and several other things, but I must be tired; I seem to be going in circles, and therefore I’d greatly appreciate some sanity and assistance, even if it’s to point to a discussion that actually resolves this issue.

Grateful for helping me in my tired state; thanks!

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Brian Masinick
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[sybokMember]

Hi Brian, would you consider creating a new user (effectively clean slate on top of the current system) and see if the account is affected as well?

That could be an overkill but the user can be removed afterwards.

[stevesr0Member]

Hi Brian,

A basic question is – is it hardware or software?

Does a live usb still work fine in extended use?

[Brian MasinickModerator]

stevesr0 wrote:

Hi Brian,

A basic question is – is it hardware or software?

Does a live usb still work fine in extended use?

A live USB is a second issue. I’ve figured out before how to start a Live USB but yesterday I had no luck.

To answer the question from Sybok, I’ll try creating another account and see what happens then.

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[Brian MasinickModerator]

sybok wrote:

Hi Brian, would you consider creating a new user (effectively clean slate on top of the current system) and see if the account is affected as well?

That could be an overkill but the user can be removed afterwards.

I tried doing that. Right now another account is set to the default GUI login.
What’s complicating all of this is the inability to use our convenient GUI tools to resolve all of this.

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[olsztynMember]

Brian Masinick wrote:

I actually got it working for a little while, but upon one of the reboots it started hanging once the GUI attempts to start with a green messsage saying only Sessiontype:

It appears to me that slimski (if you still use slimski) attempts to start the default X session type, such as icewm and possibly autologin was set up but something went wrong? If you can get into an alternate session on one of VT terminals (TTY 2 or 3) and start X then disable autologin so login would be required on slimski, did you try that possibility?
I think I encounterd a similar issue in the past and this fixed it, but your cause of issue may be different though than mine at that time…
Just would not hurt to try though.

• This reply was modified 5 months ago by olsztyn.
• This reply was modified 5 months ago by olsztyn.

Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
http://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters

[Brian MasinickModerator]

I disabled autologin in the /etc/slimski.local.conf configuration file.
That helped me see that the default login is not working.

I think the next thing is to completely reinstall this system;
This Lenovo X201 is not cooperating in reading and installing from USB at the moment.

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Brian Masinick
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[olsztynMember]

Brian Masinick wrote:

I think the next thing is to completely reinstall this system;
This Lenovo X201 is not cooperating in reading and installing from USB at the moment.

I would do the same. X201 is a great machine. I have X220, which is similar…

Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
http://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters

[Brian MasinickModerator]

olsztyn wrote:

Brian Masinick wrote:

I think the next thing is to completely reinstall this system;
This Lenovo X201 is not cooperating in reading and installing from USB at the moment.

I would do the same. X201 is a great machine. I have X220, which is similar,

I enjoy it too. I’ve done what I can to alter the boot order.
I placed the USB as the first boot option, and yet when I go
to reboot with an installation USB present, the only option shown is to
boot from the first hard drive.

I’ve used F12 to boot from another device; usually that works.
I’ve also used F1 to alter the settings and I’ve done so carefully
without success.

I’ve looked up information on it and I haven’t gotten anywhere thus far,
Any wisdom on that front?

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Brian Masinick
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[wildstar84Member]

I would look in /var/log/Xorg.0.log for any errors happening there.

[WallonMember]

Dear @Brian Masinick,

On your system, have you tried this;

1) Stop slimski

For runit;
sudo sv down slimski

For sysVinit;
sudo service slimski stop

2) Start desktop;

startx icewm
# or
startx fluxbox
# or
startx

3) New session;

desktop-session-default icewm

4) Restart slimski;

# runit
sudo sv up slimski
# or
# sysVinit
sudo service slimski start

Best,
Wallon

[Brian MasinickModerator]

I think I found the problem; I have to use an older technology
USB for this system. I put a few different ones in and some
of them DO show up, so I’m downloading and installing a new
instance of antiX 26 on one of those devices; that should
do it!

--
Brian Masinick
Alternate "Search B":
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[Brian MasinickModerator]

Brian Masinick wrote:

I think I found the problem; I have to use an older technology
USB for this system. I put a few different ones in and some
of them DO show up, so I’m downloading and installing a new
instance of antiX 26 on one of those devices; that should
do it!

Yup, that did it, finishing up a fresh antiX 26 install
on this system!

--
Brian Masinick
Alternate "Search B":
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[olsztynMember]

Brian Masinick wrote:

I think I found the problem; I have to use an older technology
USB for this system. I put a few different ones in and some
of them DO show up, so I’m downloading and installing a new
instance of antiX 26 on one of those devices; that should
do it!

Could you share some more info on these different USB devices that some do boot and some do not?
This is interesting. I would not think X201 laptop would require some old USB…
I have noticed however that some USB devices do not boot properly on my laptops regardless the age of laptops… Kingston Traveller was one.

Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
http://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters

[stevesr0Member]

Hi Brian,

Re the usb drive doesn’t show up. There was someone with the same complaint on my local LUG. When I looked this up, an answer I found was that the BIOS/UEFI will only list devices it can recognize. So, it is plausible that (if possible) changing the BIOS/UEFI (or perhaps editing the BIOS “shell”) would allow that computer to handle a different type of usb drive.

Thanks for the specifics that it was the type (generation or “speed”?) of the drive that was the problem. I will pass that back to the person in my LUG with the similar problem.

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