The first thing to try is ctrl-alt-F1 to get to a text console, then try logging on as fred. If it fails you may get interesting messages.

If that fails use ctrl-alt-F7 (or ctrl-alt-F6) to get back to the normal GUI, log on as root, open a console and enter su fred. If that works the account should be OK, but the password may not be what you think it should be.

To fix the password enter passwd fred. This should ask you for a new password for fred. Then try logging on as fred.

If that fails post output from grep fred /etc/passwd here.

If all else fails set up another user account from scratch.

Chris

@ Dustch_Master, Im not real clued up on login managers but does say LXDM need the user to be in the video group?

id <user>

It gives you a list of groups your user is a member off. In that list the video group should appear. If not, you need to make your user a member of that group.

usermod -G dialout,cdrom,floppy,audio,video,plugdev,<user>

Replace <user> with the correct username. Make sure there are no spaces in the list!

but how do i get that user to login from the graphical login screen?

graphical login screen only gives me 1 typable space

user:
then it changes to
password:

however when putting the correct details in it just goes back to
user:   

if however i type
user: root
password: what ever this might be

i get my graphical desktop

su <user>

Then hit enter. Only then do you provide the password!

If that doesn't work, do

id <user>

This should provide you a list with the groups your user is a member of. Should that yield a negative result, you may need to delete the user from your system and start again. Report back when you get that far.

devuan live disk amd 64 (with refractor installer)

i successfully installed devuan.

My WIFI works

My sound not so much at the moment (gaming headset G933) doesnt show up in " lspci " although it is attached.

but the weird thing is i have the opposite problem of this thread

https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=3836

i can access root via gui but not the user account
i type in user then the password

and it just goes back to a blank space.

how can i fix this?
how do i check that  the user took hold during setup?

when i created the new user,
- i selected keeping root with separate password
- user can use sudo