ibook starts up in Darwin/BSD terminal mode

[thebonito]

HELP!
ibook G3 recently updated OSX 10.2 to 10.2.8, and also security updates - suddenly froze, and now will only startup via OSX startup screen directly into Darwin terminal window.
I can login; and get a welcome to Darwin message, but don't know how to get back to the visual platform.
Why is it doing this?
I have tried starting up in safe mode, and resetting pram, but am not getting anywhere.
any ideas?

[Transient]

Were you able to start up to the GUI when you tried safe mode or did you still end up at the command prompt? What troubleshooting steps have you tried from the command line?