Ubuntu gone haywire!

S

Sysem

Expert Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2009
Messages
1,891
Made a huge mistake... All was well until I typed in apt-get upgrade. I noticed that nothing wanted to work. Opening folders or applications just seemed to do nothing. So being a ex-Windows user, I rebooted. Got to the virtual terminal thing and now I cant get the GDM to start. So now I'm stuck in what seems like a DOS environment. This is what iv tried so far:

startx - gives me a black screen, then an error about "cant find module 'dri' "
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg - This is supposed to take me through some steps to reconfigure it, but nothing happens at all
I've edited the xorg.conf file and replaced the "fglrx" in the Device Section with "ati" and "radeon". None of which have worked.
Even booted into recovery mode and nothing.
A site recommended that I remove the xserver-xorg-core which I did, then when I ran:
aptitude install xserver-xorg-core
it wouldnt download anything. Seems I cant connect to the internet via the terminal at all.

Im completely stumped as what to do next. About to reinstall ubuntu 9.10, just waiting for the ISO to download.

Can anyone help me before I reinstall?

Thanks,
Sysem
 
K

kingrob

Guest
Just do a reinstall. It sounds like you got upgraded to Ubuntu 10.04 pre-Alpha. :p
 
M

MyWorld

Executive Member
Joined
Mar 24, 2004
Messages
5,001
If the environment is working (the PC boots up) then it is probably either Xorg or your GFX driver.
Look in /var/log to see what was updated on your last update, look for either Xorg or the video drivers.
Code: 
cat /var/log/apt/term.log | grep -e 2010-03-25 -e Setting
Check all your logs X related to see if there is an error. (cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log and /var/log.gdm/:0.log)
This together with your installation history should show you what is damaged.

According to my wife's PC there was a Xorg update on the 16th this month, so if you kept your system up to date then it would seem to be a GFX driver issue.
Now you have three choices:
1 - See if there is a reported problem in the Ubuntu forums and how to fix this, if it is only the above mentioned errors then you can also simply mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup and try and restart X - /etc/init.d/gdm start
Still not working? Look at the logs to see what is at fault.
2 - See if there is a problem with the upgrade in Ubuntu bugzilla and if possible, how to fix it.
3 - Revert one release back - Google and find out how to.

This should sort you out.
 
R

rurapente

Expert Member
Joined
Jan 4, 2009
Messages
2,521
use aptitude to upgrade, it has better dependency resolution. although i've never see apt break a system like that.

Are you sure you had the correct repositories? and didnt the wrong distribution to the repo list?
 
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