Article 6EW03 X server doesn't work anymore. /etc/profile not sourced properly

X server doesn't work anymore. /etc/profile not sourced properly

by
PreguntoYo
from LinuxQuestions.org on (#6EW03)
Hello:

The PSU of this PC seems to be dying (it doesn't start unless you keep the power on button pressed), so I'll try to get help before it's too late. I have backups, BTW.

This weekend I installed Windows 10 AND Slackware 15.0 stable in my refurbished ThinkPad T440s. This laptop has never given me a problem (so far). The installation was very tedious. Then I upgraded everything, also the kernel to 5.15.117. Finally, I could start in runlevel 4 with a regular user, open Konsole, su - and install sbopkg and others from slackbuilds.

Everything seemed to be going ok, so I let the laptop going on alone. When I came back, the screen had gone into power-save mode, so I rolled my fingers over the touchpad and Plasma came back. Then I noticed that Plasma was "falling apart": icons had started disappearing from the menu. Uh-oh. I tried to shutdown, the menu wasn't working. I tried Ctrl-Alt-Del, no way. I changed to a console and shutoff the laptop from root.

Now when I restart, X-server locks and I can only see a black screen with a mouse pointer on it. I can open a console, so I've changed inittab to runlevel 3. I've tried also to startx from my regular account, results are:
Code:Linux 5.15.117.

-bash: fortune) command not found

-bash: file: command not found
marklar@darkstar:~$ whereis firefox
-bash: whereis: command not found
marklar@darkstar:~$ startx
-bash: command not found
marklar@darkstar:~$ alias
alias ls='/bin/ls $LS_OPTIONS'
alias mc='./usr/share/mc/bin/mc-wrapper.sh'
marklar@darkstar:~$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/games:/binIn this laptop my regular user account is called marklar (remember South Park?). Notice failed bash commands at the login, incomplete path, aliases which I hadn't defined... I think /etc/profile and /etc/profile.d do not source well.

I don't know very well how I have caused this, frankly. I installed, configured and changed a lot of things this weekend. I've tried the easiest solutions myself: am I in users group?. Correct permissions of /etc/profile, /etc/profile.d or the files inside?, permissions of home directory?. Something incorrect in ~/.bash_profile?. Etc.

This is my list of possible suspects:
I changed LANG in /etc/profile.d/lang.sh. Three times.
I edited UMASK and HOME_MODE in /etc/login.defs. Then reverted them back to their original settings (and it didn't work, also).
I edited umask in /etc/profile. Also reverted it back to umask 022.

I mention these because I'm worried that something may have gone misconfigured because I created this user account and used it with different encodings. The same about Plasma... I could start and exit it with this account at least two times before problems arised. I'm not very knowledgeable about PAM. Maybe my changes in /etc/profile, /etc/profile.d/lang.sh or /etc/logind.defs have misconfigured something?. I Don't know.

BTW, I created this regular account using adduser. This user is included in other groups.

I verified the downloaded Slackware iso before installing. I only install software from Slackware.com (updates) or slackbuilds. There are no third party packages in this system. Not even from Alien-BOB.

When all of this happened, I was installing KeePassX, yasbsm and yt-dlp from slackbuilds. I think this is irrelevant.

If I can't find a solution, I'll delete the account and will restore the backups again. I hope it will work afterwards. Anyway I prefer knowing what I've done wrong, if possible.

Thanks in advance for any help.

P. S.: as the PSU in this PC is failing, I may not be able to reply.
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