Hi,
currently running in a crippled manner after receiving the message reported in the subject line:
login: PAM Failure, aborting:Critical Error -immediate abort
...Flashing hdd light, keyboard unresponsive - only a hard reboot works. I am writing from outside the savefile in a 'live' version of DevuanPup64, after selecting "Boot without X" and then typing 'xwin' at the prompt.
My rig is the Panasonic CF-52 mentioned in my post just previous. Not a daily driver, a hobby project. I was really chuffed with my efforts to get DBGL and SCUMMV (deb installs) working on this getup, over 300 classic DOS game titles working well.
But before I last rebooted a few days ago, I installed Flatpak integration, working I thought amazingly with all the Gnome dependencies installed via PPM. This was so I could access updated software that isn't available on the PPM (like Abiword 3.04 etc), and I even installed other software as proof of principle. A "Software" menu item populated itself in the "Setup" category, and from there I could immediately access Flathub with full access to all the available titles, updates etc. *Definitely going back to this*
But it seems I knew not what I was doing. I am assuming that I have caused an issue with no systemd requirements somewhere. I don't know how to easily repair this, Suggestions welcome *please*. I'll try checkfs-type options in the meantime.
I also managed to solve an issue I had with not being able to run Nathans Wallpaper setter etc, I was unable to make background changes for some time. I don't really know how the issue was solved but it also happened just before I did the last shutdown.
Everthing is running on an ext4 -formatted SSD that I rescued from another project (ATA Vaseky V800/128G)
Awaiting advice, cheers ;}
UPDATE: keyboard *does* work after booting into PAM failure - crtl-alt-del reboots as per norm. e2ckfs was the term/process I meant earlier, but it is unlikely to solve the problem, judging from historic posts on other Linux fora with this problem raised,