RH 8/Knoppix question

[Ice-9]

A friend of mine completely messed up his RH 8 while installing the latest nvidia drivers.
All he gets is a black screen, no login prompt, nothing.
He can type stuff, su root and all, but when he tries to edit his XF86config file he can't save it because it's read-only.

I burned him the latest Knoppix iso to try and use it as a rescue disc, same issue, he can't chmod the file because it's read-only.
(He unticked the "read-only" option on the partition and used the root shell, still nothing)

Would anybody know how to fix this problem, either from within RH or by using Knoppix?

[TheQuirk]

Teehee...

In pico: pico -w <file>
In Vim, when you are done: :wq! (yes, include the "!").

[Ice-9]

Doesn't work, he can edit the file, but he can't save it.
Even when he su to root, apparently he doesn't own the file and can't save it.
(tried su and su -)
When trying to chmod it, all he gets is "permission denied" - "read-only file"

[TheQuirk]

:wq! or :w! always worked from me in Vim. Odd.

[Calum]

how is this partition being mounted? did you already say it was being mounted rw? or is it ro?

[RudeCat7]

Since it is a video problem in Redhat, you should be able to use 'linux single' at the lilo prompt to get you in. It's saved my ass before.

[flap]

quote:Originally posted by Ice9:
Doesn't work, he can edit the file, but he can't save it.
Even when he su to root, apparently he doesn't own the file and can't save it.
(tried su and su -)
When trying to chmod it, all he gets is "permission denied" - "read-only file"

Who does own it?

[Ice-9]

quote: Originally posted by Calum

how is this partition being mounted? did you already say it was being mounted rw? or is it ro?

When you start Knoppix it's ro but he changed that to rw.

 

quote: Originally posted by flap

Who does own it?

XF86config is owned by RH's root but when you boot with Knoppix you are user Knoppix.
The odd thing here is that even when he boots into RH and su to root he doesn't seem to own the file and can't save to it   :confused:

[Ice-9]

Nm, he's got it fixed, he shut down his computer quite abruptly out of pure anger       and when he rebooted he had a prompt asking him to do a filesystem check, he logged in, edited his config file and everything is fine now.

Quite unconventional way to fix things if you ask me but hey, it's the result that counts isn't it?
I'm still going to investigate the Knoppix/root user issue should I ever need to use it as a rescue disc.
Creedon, I know you're quite positive about Knoppix, if you know a workaround for this I'd be happy to hear about it      

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.

[ December 30, 2002: Message edited by: Ice9 ]

[choasforages]

umm, su doesn't work with knoppix
instead try
sudo bash

and that will give you a root shell under knoppix

[membrax]

quote:Originally posted by TheQuirk:
Teehee...

In pico: pico -w <file>
In Vim, when you are done: :wq! (yes, include the "!").

Hummm hummmm ... nearly right buddy.
But whith a black screen, pico is quite difficult to use you know.
And, on top of that, when the concerned file is -rw-r--r-- attributed you can put as many "!" as you want, without being root you won't have the write access to it !


By the way, coz I'm the victim Ice9 is speaking over, as I recompiled the latest nVidia drivers 4.1.9.1 I just got the same trouble one hour ago.
Screen totally black.

... and then ?

Worked as a blind :
- many <esc> keys, followed by some <Enter>
- then "login" <Enter>
- then "root"
- then "**********" nah you won't know my password  
--->> I became root
- then the famous cmd line blindly :
"cp etc/X11/XF86Config-original etc/X11/XF86Config" yeah, I had a clean copy ... just in case.
- "y" (still blindly, remember ?)
- "halt"
- System shutdown & reboot.

Let there be light !


By the way Ice9, thx again for getting support for me, as you surely recall I really needed that !!!

;o)