How to recover Linux from 'repair file system' error

Question

Unfortunately my mom did something that I don't know and Linux is in command-line mode. What is the key for exiting from the shell and going to the desktop?

I tried

• Alt + F2
• Alt + F6
• Ctrl + Alt + F2
• Ctrl + Alt + Delete
• exit

No one worked for me. It goes to the black shell and tells me enter login and root password. When I enter it, it shows me repair file system in red color. Alt + F2 shows me a blank black page and Alt + F1 will return back to this shell.

My version is openSUSE 11.1.

Answer 1

"shows me repair file system in red color"

This is the key: the filesystem is corrupted, probably due to an unclean shutdown. It needs to be repaired. Try entering the root password, which should give you a '#' prompt. Type:

fsck -A -y

That will take a while and print out something about what it's fixing. Once that has completed, type "exit". You may need to restart the system again.

Answer 2

Ctrl + Alt + F7 should return you to the GUI if it is still running. If not, try startx.

Answer 3

The CLI (Command Line Interface) is not a "window" or program in Linux like it is in recent versions of Windows.

So you are not trying to Exit the CLI, you are trying to Start the Graphical User Interface (GUI).

First off: Have you restarted the computer? And what version or Distro are you using?

Update 1:

Instructions for starting KDE from CLI in opensuse are to run the command:

startx

or

startkde

Update 2:

From http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/11550.html

The first thing to do is to make sure that KDE will start up from the command line. On SUSE, KDE is installed into the /opt/kde3 folder and all the commands can be found in the bin sub folder. This directory will probably not be in your path as KDE set this in its start up routine.

Your path is a list of folders where Linux looks for commands (Tools, Utilities and Applications) to run.

You can find out your path with the command line:

$ echo $PATH

The command to start the KDE GUI (Graphical User Interface) is a shell script called "startkde".

The script checks to see that everything is cool for it to run correctly, and adds its command folder to your path.

It does lots of other checks and sets up its graphics, fonts, and user preferences. Then it starts the X server and KDE.

Running the command from the command line will let you see any error messages in case it does not start properly. What you do about these is beyond the scope of this answer as there could be many reasons why it didn't work. Hopefully the error messages will be self explanatory.

You can run this command in two ways. Either by giving the full path name thus:

$ /opt/kde3/bin/startkde

or by:

$ cd /opt/kde3/bin

$ ./startkde

If none of those solutions work, I'd recommend running a repair or reinstall of KDE.

Update 3:

Try using xwmconfig to (re)set your X Window Manager to KDE

Answer 4

Try to restart your computer:

sudo shutdown -r now

Answer 5

Depending on the distribution, the X server may have taken over the slot usually occupied by tty1 or tty7. On Fedora, ctrl+alt+F1 takes me back to the X server; ctrl+alt+F7 used to work on Ubuntu.

Failing that, X may have died - in which case you have two choices:

• Try startx - you'll need to be logged in and with the appropriate scripts configured; not all distributions have this.

• Restart init. To do this: log in, type:

  $ sudo -i
  # init 3
  # init 5
  

  You may need to re-login between the two inits, depending on your distribution. init 5 means "start multi-user graphical mode" and should boot you up into X. init 3 will likely kill any running applications you have, by the way.