[Solved] xorg fails to start via user error.

Tefrem34 · Last edited by Tefrem34 on Mon Nov 08, 2021 5:24 am; edited 1 time in total

Hello,

I made a stupid mistake trying to fix a new gentoo install on some new hardware. I had done a base install but I set up the mount point wrong and ended up with another root dir in my home. So to boot into it, I had to mount my home to "/home/home/usrname" in my "/etc/fstab". I was trying to get the home moved to the correct dir. Well, instead of trying to do it in a live disc, I was being complacent and was trying to do it in my regular install. So, when I was doing the cp commands in the terminal, instead of using the full path to the mounted drive, I used my local home dir; copying all the dot files from the new install into it. At that time I didn't realize what I just did until I rebooted.
Now I can not startx without it being root. I can not figure out which file/files that are breaking my system. I would greatly appreciate the help in figuring out which config that I need to fix to be able to use my install. I am using startx to start kde with

alamahant · Advocate Joined: 23 Mar 2019 Posts: 3879

Hi
Is your /home in a separate partition?
Is your /root in a separate partition?
Are the data intact in them?
How was the fstab before and how is it now?
What is the ouput of

ls /home
ls /root
?
It is not very clear --to me at least-- what happened.
_________________

Hu · Moderator Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 21602

Exactly what commands were run to create this situation? Why were you using cp at all, when the correct solution was to mv the home directory itself?

Tefrem34 · Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2021 9:34 pm Post subject:

@ alamahant Yes I use separate partitions for root and home. Root was unchanged because it is its own partition.

@ Hu This was the bash_history

Hu · Moderator Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 21602

You did not direct cp to preserve permissions and ownership. It is likely that all copied files are now owned by root. Cleaning this up will be challenging. Do you still have the original directory, which was nested too deeply? You appear to have tried three times to delete it at the end. If you still have it, start over, and this time use mv instead of cp.

Without knowing what error you got, I can only guess. If I were to guess, it would be that the directory for user home directories was (correctly) root:root 755, and so only root could fix the location of your nested home.

Tefrem34 · Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2021 3:50 am Post subject:

No, I started over with that install. Which I am working from. I just need all the stuff from my broken install.
Is there a command that I can run when starting x so that it saves to the home dir instead of the /var/log/Xorg.0.log ?
Is there also a way to find the permissions for my dot files that I need in order to boot?

Thanks

Tefrem34 · Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2021 3:54 am Post subject:

I just looked at the permissions for the .xinitrc file and it is owned by root.
I am going to change the permissions and see if that is the culprit.

Tefrem34 · Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2021 4:22 am Post subject:

So I was able to get into my plasma desktop with startx!!
Not only was the .xinitrc file in root group but permissions, on top of that I had it misspelled; .xitirc or something like that.

However, I am missing the configs for my plasma, since what ever I copied/moved over wiped out what I had. So I missing all the config options in my kde settings.
Is there a way for me to re-install or copy in some configs so that I can get the options and features back?

Thank you.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2021 1:35 pm Post subject:

Tefrem34,

All the files in /home/Tefrem34/ should be owned by Tefrem34.
They should be 6xx permissions. That's rw- for the owner.
If you have executable files there the should be rwx but that's a bit naughty.
The group and world access don't matter too much until things work.

Directories should be rwx for the owner.

That's enough to get you going.

There are a few security/privacy related files in /home/Tefrem34/ where the applications refuse to work if the permissions are too lax.

The group for the files in /home/Tefrem34/ will either be Tefrem34 or users, depending on your install.
Group permissions on files are usually r-- (read only) and on directories r-x.
The eXecute bit on directories allows the cd command to work.

Don't forget about the security/privacy related files that need be owner access only.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Tefrem34 · Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2021 2:43 am Post subject:

I think why it was owned by root is because when I had chrooted into that partition I was using root, and when I copied the files into my native home dir, I must have edited it; why the name of the file was misspelled.
I had not even thought of looking at file ownership or permission when it wouldn't work. So getting the help, I was able to find what I screwed up on.

Thanks again for all the help.

I really appreciate this community. You all are amazing!