Is the login a GUI? or is that just a command prompt?

after loggin in as root, try typing in init 5 and it should kill some processes, and start some new ones.

or if that doesn't work, hit ctrl+f7 (I am pretty sure it is ctrl, might be ctrl+shift+f7 or shift+f7 I forget) andway, that should bring you to the GUI.

As far as VMPlayer goes, I have never used it before.

:EDIT: try typing in "w" or "who" or even "whoami" into the command prompt, and it will tell you what terminal you are running on. aka tty2.


Good Luck!