Ubuntu 12.04 changed itself to xubuntu and stopped working

[Petter Adsen]

On Fri, 31 Jul 2015 03:08:21 +0800
Bret Busby <bret.busby at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 31/07/2015, Petter Adsen <petter at synth.no> wrote:
> > On Fri, 31 Jul 2015 01:22:44 +0800
> > Bret Busby <bret.busby at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> So it appears that, even if the autologin line was there, I would not
> >> be able to do anything to change it.
> >
> > See the answer that Nick gave you below for how to remount your root
> > filesystem in rw mode. Then you will be able to alter files normally.
> >
> 
> I haven't sen any response from anyone named Nick, and I haven't sen
> any information regarding how to remount the system in rw mode.

Message-ID: <14edfcb7d25.11caba53a3424.6367672985120000358 at zoho.com>

Sent 2015-07-30 18:28:51 +0200. Seems it was Ralf who sent it, with
the interesting name "Nick Name", I didn't really read it until
just now. Short summary:

mount -o remount,rw / && mount -a

After running that you should be able to purge any troublesome packages
in the usual manner.

> > When you attempt to boot normally and the screen goes blank, are you
> > able to switch to a virtual console? Have you got the option of trying
> > to access the system via the network to see if the rest of the system
> > is alive and only the console or X is dead?
> >
> 
> Trying to access th system via a console, had not occured to me.
> 
> I will try that and then log back into this installation.

Please do, as it will give a pretty clear indicator of whether it is
just X/your display manager or if it goes deeper than that.

> I have tried to ftp to another computer on this LAN, but was unable,
> so I believe that, apart from accessing the Internet gateway to go
> out, I am not able to have access between this computer and others
> within the LAN.

If you have network access you should be able to access local hosts,
but they of course need to be running a service for you to contact. For
very basic diagnostics, try to ping by IP address, just to see that the
IP stack is up and connected.

> > An idea of exactly what has hung would be very helpful to know where to
> > go from here.
> >
> 
> How would I find what has hung?

Well, my first suspects would be that either the X server or the video
driver kernel module has died, or maybe lightdm. If the X server,
there should be clues in /var/log/Xorg.0.log, if the kernel module
then /var/log/dmesg and/or /var/log/kern.log would be a good place to
start.

Determining exactly what has happened would depend on what you find in
those files. In Xorg.0.log errors will be marked (EE) and warnings
(WW). Any error messages in dmesg are typically pretty obvious if you
take a little time to look through them, paying special attention to
anything that seems related to your GPU.

If none of those seem to contain anything interesting, then look
under /var/log/lightdm (if you are indeed running lightdm, I've got no
idea what display manager 12.04 used by default). The files lightdm.log
and x-0.log in that directory might be helpful.

There are any number of things that could have gone wrong, but if the
display is hung then these are the places where I would start.

Petter

-- 
"I'm ionized"
"Are you sure?"
"I'm positive."
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