I'm facing the same problem now guys, OpenSuse 10 is wat i use and i got tried every option available posted here, but its even more worse for me that i cant login normally with GNome session even if i create a new user with password, i logged in with Failsafe - Gnome now, to backup my datas but Failsafe as the name indicates lacks several features of normal usage, can anybody come with a solution soon?

Same prob here, any new ideas??

I just wiped / and re-installed. So far so good.

I always have /home on a seperate partition, so its no big deal to wipe / it just means i need to re-install my programs, but all my settings and data is how i left it.

Well you can login after you delete the files in your /home/user dir. This might work if was not for the fact everytime you restart Linux, you have to delete your home/user dir again. And this of course is not acceptable. Might as well be running Knoppix. BTW all these problems started when I did not log out properly. I wish Suse would fix this problem.

i might be wrong but i got that problem once again and i ended up reinstalling linux from scratch. the only thing that i can remember was that i ran ymessenger in my previous session but anything else that i did was exactly the same.

try control centre > kde components > session manager

within the log on section enable "start with an empty session"

use CAB (Ctrl+Alt+Backspace) to restart X then try logging in ...

I was wondering, where did you get this information form. will this really fix the problem??

Check your $PATH environment variable, make sure you are doing a "export PATH=$PATH:<your dirs>", and not a "export PATH=<your dirs>". At least in KDE, there are some scripts that just call scripts, without a absolute path (bad idea in my opinion...).

Also, try removing any security related files in your home directory like .ICE*, .DCOP*, or .Xsession. Also, look at /var/log/Xorg.0.log or /var/log/Xfree.0.log, and possibly even ~/.xsession-errors (the ~ means your home directory, in case anyone doesn't know that)

If you still cannot log in, even if you have done the following:
- Cleaning out /tmp
- Cleaning out security session files (.DCOP*, .ICE*, .Xsession..)
- Removing the window manager hidden directory (.kde or .gnome(I think...))
- The $PATH variable is set right
- Log files show no errors

Then you must have a problem in the window manager, or global session startup files (like .bashrc, .profile, etc...).

If this still doesn't work, and you really don't want to figure this out, then this is the Linux equivalent of "Format and Reinstall". You really should be able to figure this out though, this is Linux. Of course, no one said it'd be easy! However, after you are done, you will understand more than you ever wanted to know about Linux and X windowing system

Frns I'm using GNome and can anybody come out with a solutionin GNome??

I think its a prob of increase in disk space contributing to the problem, after each logout.. Any ideas???

So is it necessary to wipe the home folder clean periodically??
If tat is so, can OpenSuse be said a stable linux distribution??

Is swap enabled? I can't remember how to check that, but many years ago when I first installed Slackware, I hadn't enabled swap. Made things not work right.

No offense, but Linux isn't a "here, let me show you" OS, and never has been. It has always been one for individual learning and self-discovery. There is hardly any end user documentation, most code isn't very well documented, and the whole thing requires you to understand what is going on without any of this information. Numerous suggestions have been given, based upon our collective experience. You now have enough information to fill in the blanks, and try and learn more about what is going on. The only way you are going to learn is to figure it out for yourself. So, now, if you have tried EVERYTHING that we have suggested, it is safe to say, those aren't your problems.

I don't want to sound harsh, but the way I learned Linux was a manual, non-graphical install of Slackware 8 years ago. I'm still not an expert, but I do use Google to research things. I also use grep and strings to get information on some things. The cycle repeats itself until I figure it out. Oh, and I've been told I really suck at debugging, so, maybe this isn't the best way. However, I keep getting told I "have to understand the problem first, in order to fix it". I'm slowly learning that, but I think this is the problem here. If you understood the problem, you would already have the solution, or at least posting a question about problems with your solution. It's easier to find a flaw with an assumption, but really hard to find a solution to "Gnome doesn't start".

Good luck, and when you are done, share your knowledge on what fixed it. Maybe something has changed, and our understanding is now out of date.

If your home directory is on it's own partition, and you have not given it sufficient space, yes, this could be a problem. However, I don't think this is an OS problem. Yes, it should be able to handle it more gracefully, but the way Linux is structure you have numerous "programs" on the system. Some make up the OS, others are user level (including Gnome). It is not the fault of the OS if a user program doesn't handle this out of memory condition correctly.

I can tell you that SuSE 10.0 with the DVD installation is pretty stable here. We have some issue with random lockups, but we have nearly 15 machines running SuSE 10.0 with KDE, and only about 2 are having these problems. Of course, we aren't using Gnome, so maybe there are issues with Gnome. We have 120GB SATA disks with 2 partitions, swap and /. A full development environment installation of SuSE is about 4.0GB. So, even if you have a "small" 20GB drive, you will probably not have too much of a problem with space. Check your ~/tmp directory, perhaps you have programs that are dumping big files there. Also, don't forget to check any browser cache too. If /home is filling up too fast, you underestimated your storage needs, and will need to reinstall and have the appropriate sized partition.

If you mean "stable" as in "idiot proof", no Linux never has been, and probably never will be. It makes some assumptions on user intelligence (that's not a crack at anybody), but more error checking is being put into place. Windows XP is a pretty "stable" operating system, but I still prefer Linux.

well i faced the same problem some time back
go to the direcory /tmp and then mpve on to the directory by the name kde-username like in my case kde-root.
check there maybe ur suse isnt deleting the temp files
last time i had a 10 gb partition for linux and around 6 gb was empty after installation.even then after a week or so it showed no space left on ur hdd and kde wasnt starting or gnome whatever. this tmp directory was using around 5-6 gb lol
trying deleting files thr can be help to u

I had the same problem, and i also installed this rh9.ymessenger-1.0.4-1.i386 (the yahoo messenger) before the problem.

when i deleted all the 'hidden' files, just the files, i could log in perfectly.
thanks.