Cannot Login to Desktop

author:jozee, linea, kultex, mojo

Symptoms

  • SLiM, the SliTaz Login Manager, fails with the message:

    failed to execute login command

Warning

Verify the SliTaz install partition is not full and formated with a linux filesystem such as ext3. Using fat32 or ntfs filesystems cause login failure.

Explanation

The following files must exist, this can be verified with the ls -la command:

  • .Xdefaults
  • .xinitrc
  • something else?

Solution

You should copy the default files from the template located in the /etc/skel directory. This happens automatically when a new user is created with the SliTaz Control Box, but not when using the command-line utilities. Occasionally users experience these files being removed or modified/broken.

Switch to the root (super) user:

su root

Change to the affected users /home directory:

cd /home/USERNAME

Set the shell options to allow the dot (.) to be included in file names:

shopt -s dotglob

Copy all files, recursively:

cp -r /etc/skel/* /home/USERNAME

Change ownership of all files and directories in the user’s home to that of the affected user:

chown -R USERNAME:USERGROUP /home/USERNAME/*

Restore the shell options:

shopt -u dotglob

The essential files should now be restored!

EDIT:

shopt -u dotglob

is not working in slitaz-3.0.iso — instead of this run in addition:

chown -R USERNAME:USERGROUP /home/USERNAME/.[a-zA-Z0-9]*