unable to log into the system

[abelito8]

Good evening,

I have kubuntu 9.04 installed in my computer and I am normally using a Gnome environment desktop (though I get back to KDE or Xfce if I have any troubles with Gnome)

This afternoon I restarted my computer and since ever I am unable to log in. I press the on button, get to the partition page and select Ubuntu 9.04 and the computer shows the login page

however, once I type in my password, the computer tries to log in but then brings me back to the login page asking for the password again. I have tried to login as Xfce, Gnome, KDE, Failsafe mode and the result is the same. The only way to get through is to login through the terminal, but then I am unable to get back to the graphical mode. Any help?

[reed9]

Sometimes if it's unable to start the X server, it will loop back to the login manager.

Log in as your user through the console and type

startx

If it's unable to start X, it should give you some hopefully useful errors to help troubleshoot.

Was there an update or anything before this started happening? Do you know what your graphics card is?

[abelito8]

Thank you, I will try. I did an update and upgrade but 24 hours before. The only thing I can think of is that I used a USB flash that seems not to work properly but still, I was copying some files leaving system files untouched

and I have no idea what my graphic card is, but will try to find out

[reed9]

and I have no idea what my graphic card is, but will try to find out

From the command line, type

/sbin/lspci | grep VGA

[abelito8]

Thank reed9 you for your suggestion, it seems it was a problem of permission and it worked fine using the sudo chum command, I still do not understand why this happened for I carried out no update before

and I was also unable to use te command line

/sbin/lspci | grep VGA


shall I use it once I login through the terminal? (after the $ symbol)?

thank you in any case