Upgraded to KDE3 will not login

[baztorres]

I have just installed Mandrake 8.2 recently with KDE 2.2. I upgraded this to KDE3 using a Software Manager (not the RPM one in Mandrake but something like "Software Managwer").

The details:
Have a KDE3 CD which was used as the source. Launched the Software Manager and browsed to the dir on the CD for Mandrake. Selected the KDE3base file and proceeded to install this. It threw up a load of dependecie errors / warning's, so I forced it to install. I did NOT reboot and thought that it all looked ok, so I installed the KDE3network stuff from CD and also forced the install dispite dependecy messages. Then I thought that I would re-boot the PC. It failed to close something down. Not to sure what, maybe a file system, I cannot remember. When when it came back up, it had KDE3 in the list of available enviroments, so I selected it and proceeded to logon. The screen goes black, like no signal to it, and then it goes back to the logon screen. Tried to log into KDE2.2 and that does the same.

I have not tried it since, but I have a feeling that it is buggered.

How would I go about un-installing KDE3 from the command line?
What other options do I have?
How can I satisfy the dependicies if I have to re-build the box AND just to know for future reference.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Baz

[hard candy]

You may need to log in to run level 3 and uninstall kdm (the login manager) and then reinstall it (it messes up if you try to install it while in a gui environment).

[baztorres]

Hard Candy,

How would I go about doing that?

[hard candy]

If you can get to the login screen, try Ctrl-Alt-F3, if that doesn't work, select failsafe as root if that is an option. You may be in a plain x windows environment. Move the cursor over the white box, and enter "/sbin/telinit 3" and press enter. Then use the rpm commands to uninstall and reinstall kdm (man rpm). If you can't get to runlevel 3, try getting to runlevel 1 and try cd'ing to the /etc and opening /etc/inittab with a text writer like vi, nano, pico, jed, etc. Go to default runlevel and change from a 5 to a 3. Reboot. After you get it installed change the runlevel back to 5 in inittab and reboot.

[baztorres]

Right ....

I booted it up and logged into the "Text and Network" of the failsafe boot option.

What I then done is login as su and browse to /opt/kde3 (I think). I found this is where the files are located for the KDE3 installation. This was found from the Linux Complete (McGraw & Hill) reference book.

From there I ran the rpm query "rpm -qi kdebase3" and it gave me the info, so I then ran "rpm -e kdebase3".
Et voila, I have KDE2.??? running again as I logged out of su, logged in as user and hit the command "startx"

Except now it seems that some things are failing when I boot it up and it does not power down properly, it hangs. Also it doesn't seem to like doing SMB protocal networking stuff, or that could be the w2k laptop, incidently I am thinking of sticking Linux on that too.

I think that I may have to sucumb to the "re-build" option and turn it into a proper server.

Anyway, cheers for your help.