[ILUG] Rebuilding KDE for root from the terminal screen

[Comerford, Wayne]

Sorry if this gets mailed twice cause the last time i tried i got this back.
:-
-----------------------------------------------
Your mail to 'ILUG' with the subject:

    rebuilding KDE for root from the terminal screen?

Is being held until the list moderator can review it for approval.

The reason it is being held:

    Suspicious header

Either the message will get posted to the list, or you will receive
notification of the moderator's decision.
------------------------------------------------

Hi Guys,

I'm having a bit of a problem, When ever I log in as root I cannot seem to
be able to run anything except for the help files. 
I'm running OpenLinux2.3 KDE.
I can log in as normal user and everything is fine, and I change to root and
do all my admin work that way.

I've got apache, sendmail and ftp running.

I first noticed this when I'd leave the Box running for a day or two without
and any interference, and then find it has hanged as such. Mouse still
working, help files but nothing else. 
So I would have to reboot.
After about three times I decided to check Roots mail. There was over 10,000
mails. When I tried to retrieve these the system crashed. Rebooted and now I
cannot run anything. I don't even have to leave it idle to get it to hang.

I can log in as root through failsafe to get to the terminal screen and do
all my configuring from there.

It's not a big deal since I don't really want to log in as root, but I would
really like to know how to fix this.
I read somewhere that if you remove .kderc from /root and restart that this
would resetup the kde profile for root, but I tried that and it didn't work.
Also "cron" could be causing this. so I stopped running that.

Any ideas. cause as a newbie i'm completely lost.
Wayne
 
Wayne Comerford,
IT Department,
Bowne Global Solutions,
Wayne.Comerford at bowneglobal.ie
Ph:+353 1 614 6349