continuing mouse difficulties [and Bastille concerns]

[Brian Densmore]

> From: Eric Gilliland [mailto:jegilliland at hotmail.com]
> 
> OK, I tried changing out mice, same problem.  I set security 
> back to 'low' 
> using bastillechooser, but it still won't let me log in to 
> KDE as root.  I 
> tried to run interactivebastille, but could not.

Eric,

   Have you tried logging in to root from a virtual terminal screen
(either from within KDE or one of the standard ones)? If you can do
that, then I would concur with Sam, you need to undo the Bastille
configuration and start over.

Secondly, I don't recommend doing all of your configuration from editors
and the command line [I will now be flamed by all the purists]. I didn't
choose Linux because I could then spend the rest of my life configuring
my system. I believe it is important to understand what a tool does if
you are going to use it.
[<off-topic rant> Of course there are those people who still prefer to
cut down trees, saw it into planks and make boxes out of them. I prefer
to go to the wood store and by pre-dimensioned wood to build boxes, even
though I know how to cut down and dimension wood into lumber :) </rant>]
I do recommend using Bastille and other tools to make configuration
quick and easy. Unfortunately the downside is, that if you mess up
getting back may be difficult and time consuming [since you may not know
everything the tool altered]. Also there is still too little preparation
for new converts. Bastille and linuxconf do a lot of things to a system.
Bastille does create a log of what changes are made though. Linuxconf is
just annoying [even if somewhat useful].

Eric you first order of business will be to get the root account
working. If you can't log in from a terminal then you have changed the
password to something unexpected. Try this:
reboot the machine, when the boot prompt comes up enter init=1 this
should get you into a root bash shell [it is possible you have
configured your system to require a password here]. 
>From there you can change the root password and init 5 to get into a
normal boot. Also, it is possible that Bastille disabled local root
login, so you should also try to su into the root account from your
personal account in a VT.

Hope this is at least minimally useful.

Brian