[SOLVED] ubuntu 10.04, only terminal display & no desktop

[deepikarc]

Hello, I am Deepika, I am new to this forum, About 2 hrs. ago I faced a major problem : after login, only the terminal was appearing and no desktop. This problem occurred after following the 3 commands to sync iphone to the rhythmbox :

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pmcenery/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

After doing the above I restarted & then only terminal was appearing and no desktop. I have uninstalled libimobiledevice package but still no change. If anyone has any solutions to this problem please let me know. Thanks.

[Mo3u8se]

I had something like this happen to me. Let me find my thread about it.
Edit: Because I need 2 more posts until I can post a link. Just click my name. Go to view forum posts and look at the very first post I posted.
Edit 2: Just type startx and see what happens.

[deepikarc]

Hi, i typed startx ans i get the following message : X: user not authorized to run the x server, aborting.

Also I did the following for abt 2 hrs. :

I removed the ppamcenery from /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ and also removed the ppa gpg key using : sudo apt-key del id. Now to some extent I am sure that I have removed the ppa repository.

After that I did the following
sudo apt-get update but it says it fails to fetch few files. e.g : could not resolve: security.ubuntu.com, could not resolve : archive.canonical.com, could not resolve dl.google.com

Then i run the command : sudo apt-get dist upgrade and it says 0 upgraded,0 newlly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Then i run the command : sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop and it says, could not resolve : in.archive.ubuntu.com, security.ubuntu.com

And then also tried : sudo aptitude install gnome, but still no luck.

Please reply asap.

[devils casper]

Hi and Welcome !


Which Graphics Card do you have? Post your Machine's specs here.

[gtrawoger]

Yes, welcome and hello.

As mentioned already, the machines graphics card model would be great. But if you don't know, no sweat! Also, is this a laptop (with wireless internet) or a desktop?

Can you also quickly run this command, and see what it tells you?

cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep -i '(EE)'

The 'cat' command prints onto the screen what is inside '/var/log/Xorg.0.log', which is the log file for your graphics. The bar ('|') and the 'grep' command filter through the output of that log file and will only show the part that have '(EE)' on it - in effect searching for the error.

[jayd512]

Hello and Welcome!

Going along with the above question from DC, did this problem occur after a system update/upgrade?
Or were the commands that you listed the only ones involved before rebooting your system?

[deepikarc]

after typing it says : (ww) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown

[deepikarc]

yes the problem after sys update/upgrade &
the following were the only commands before rebooting :

sudo add-apt-repository ppamcenery/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

[deepikarc]

when i wrote startx in root drive it said : fatal server error: server is already active for display 0. If this server is no longer running remove /tmp/.X0-lock .

[gtrawoger]

yes the problem after sys update/upgrade &
the following were the only commands before rebooting :

sudo add-apt-repository ppamcenery/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Best way I know how to revert a PPA addition is to use 'ppa-purge'.

You will have to install it first:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge

Then you will most likely have to add the PPA to your sources again. Just do your 'apt-add-repository' command again.

Then type

sudo ppa-purge pmcenery/ppa

That would revert your packages back to the way they were before you added them.