Ubuntu 8.10 updated can't start desktop

Hi

Sounds like things have gone a little wrong both with the install. We'll try to help fix that and apologies no-one helped last Saturday.

Ok, i'm not totally clear about what's going on and what's happened so far and it sounds like things are a bit confused. Lets clear that up first.

It sounds as though Ubuntu is having trouble starting the x-windows session which suggests that either you have; booted into some safe mode, a machine below the minimum spec for Ubuntu or else that the install has just gone wrong maybe just not completed for some reason. On the command line you are given try typing
    startx
Please let us know the result of that.

Can you download and burn a cd of a tiny distro like Wolvix? This should allow us to boot from the Cd and access tools such as GPartEd. DistroWatch is a popular place to compare different linux distros;-
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=wolvix
http://wolvix.org/get.php
halfway down the second page there are the 3 free download mirrors. I usually start a couple and then close the slowest one.

Boot up into the Cd, verbose mode is nice. Its all a bit grey to stay tiny. The username for Wolvix is "root" and use the password "toor". Wolvix uses a paw print instead of a "Start" button, use it to get to System - Gparted. This should show a picture of the partitions on your drive. Ideally we would have a green box, a tiny red box and finally one blue box. The blue and green boxes should be partly/mostly filled with yellow. In the top right should be a drop down button with something like "/dev/hda (7.8 GiB), clicking on the little arrow beside that should give a list of all the different physical drives your machine has, including Usb sticks but not Cd drives and such-like. The green boxes are Windows partitions and the blue ones are linux. We might also find that the blue and the red partitions are inside another box. Getting an idea of how many boxes you have on each drive and whether any are completely filled with yellow would be good, please let us know.

Sorry i can't really help just yet.
Please let me know what you find out.
Regards from
Tom

I've type "startx" and it didn't work it write that it can't find display.
I've downloaded wolvix-cub-1.10.iso because wolvix-hunter it's to big it tell me to remove some files.
I tried to put on CD and since I'm working of live CD it won't eject it to write to blank cd and for some reason it won't burn of my DVD writer.
thank you Tom for answering me
when I try to run whitout the live CD after entering my user name and password I get "jean@jmorrissette :~$" that's where I enter startx
Jean

Ahh great, you're working off a live-cd already :)

Go to the top taskbar and click on
System - Administration - Partition Editor

If it's not there then go all the way to the end of that list and click on Synaptic
Find the search button and use it to search for gparted, install it
Go back to
System - Administration - Partition Editor

and report back on what colour boxes it shows and sizes - mostly interested to know if they are full of yellow. Forget Wolvix now, i was just trying to get to gparted. Cub was the right version but Hunter would have worked too. The Ubuntu Live Cd is probably better than either tho. Ok so its just as i said in the last paragraph now really.

Good luck with this
Tom :)

PS if you can burn a CD somewhere else then SliTaz is a good Live Cd to have in case of trouble in the future
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=slitaz
it runs in ram and so it allows you to take the cd out once its running! :)

Errr the way to burn those iso images is just to double-click on them. You shouldn't need to open a cd-burning program - which might tempt you to copy the files across which wont work. Double clicking the iso image should do the whole job of burning the image properly.

lol, irrelevant really because using the Ubuntu LiveCd is fine :)

I have the gparted window open first in it we have a long box the length of the window, in it we have 6% used in yellow and 94% free /dev/sda1 73.45 GiB
below that long box we have division marked partition, filesystem, mountpoint.......
then we have under each columns
/dev/sda1 a turquoise square next to it ext3 media/disk 73.45 gib 4.23gib 68.21 gib boot
/dev/sda2 a light blue square extented 2.88 gib
     /dev/sda a red square linux swap 2.88 gib

Ok :(

That's all good for the Ubuntu but it looks like Windows has gone completely :( Looks like any data you had in Windows has gone too i'm afraid :( I hope you had backed up everything personal, otherwise you have just suffered what many of us have suffered from at some point. It's very unlikely, even wih data-recovery tools that you'll be able to get any of that back. Chalk one up to experience :(

The bootup menu for Ubuntu has lots of other options such as "Recovery Mode" and all-sorts but just the top one, which it chooses automatically after a short delay, that's the important one. Where you have reinstalled over the top of Ubuntu hasn't added additional menu items. All's as it should be for Ubuntu i'm fairly certain. One slight improvement you could make (but probably not orth the effort) is to delete the red-swap-file partition and the light-blue-extended partition and in the resulting grey area create a new red-swap-file but that's just me being fussy - no real need for it.

The big mystery now is why the Ubuntu isn't working. It sounds like the graphics card might be struggling or that there isn't enough Ram. Do you know how much Ram your computer has?

Please can you go to System - Administraton - Hardware Testing
use it and let i send the results in, giving your email address in the final stages of that.

I'm really sorry i can't help much and i'm away for a few days too.

Good luck and regards in the mean-time
Tom

Cancel that. I've jus been reading up abouthis and now think it's worth posting a new question "updates broke x-windows, please help"

Sorry to be answering back so late how was out of town for a while.
When you mention graphic struggle I removed 1 of my graphic card and then how was able to log on ubuntu but no trace of Windows.
I have another problem I have a warning telling me that I have 23 updates, I click on the arrow the updates manager open I click on install it ask me my password it start to work then noting else happen or a window open up telling it is my last chance to check authorization and it doesn't matter what I try or click nothing happen and I'm stock with those windows they won't close I have to reboot to get rid of them
thank you Jean

I have 3 versions of OS Ubuntu on my computer and I would like to know how to get rid of 2 of them
thank you
Jean Morrrissette

Are 2 of the options (Recovery Mode) and something like (Safe Mode) or something? It's a good idea to keep them but we can help you edit all 3 titles to some less daunting and nicer looking :)

Or we could help you get rid of them but it's best not

Please let us know

Regards from
Tom :)

the latest 1 I loaded from my live cd it has recovery mode, memtest 8.6 and the regular line to start the os and then I have a line saying choice of other OS system there I have a version I update to .9 with it recovery line and then I have another versions that I didn't update with it recovery line and memtext 8.6 line

Ahah ok. We need to edit your menu.lst file then.

How do edit my menu.lst

Jean

Thanks Tom, that solved my question.

Nicely done, thanks for that :)

Regards from
Tom :)

I,ve just loaded ubuntu onto my comp , when I start it gives me the option of windows or ubuntu, I,ve clicked ubuntu and all it does is say type help for instructions , I did that and typed one of the instruction and something likew trfmxs keeps coming up with the instruction I,ve typed, I hit enter button again and trfsa keep on repaeting,
One other thing , can I cross laod all my picasa photos, it,s all a bit frightening really, load this and wipe ypur computer clean,I don,t think so, it strikes me that this programme is for boffins only and not me, a 67 year old exmatelot whose just fed up with windows and whose usual answer is to take a big hammer to it, one other thing , how can I wipe ubuntu off my computer, or have I just commited the cardinal sin for linux users
Vaughan

I,ve just loaded ubuntu onto my comp , when I start it gives me the option of windows or ubuntu, I,ve clicked ubuntu and all it does is say type help for instructions , I did that and typed one of the instruction and something likew trfmxs keeps coming up with the instruction I,ve typed, I hit enter button again and trfsa keep on repaeting,
One other thing , can I cross laod all my picasa photos, it,s all a bit frightening really, load this and wipe ypur computer clean,I don,t think so, it strikes me that this programme is for boffins only and not me, a 67 year old exmatelot whose just fed up with windows and whose usual answer is to take a big hammer to it, one other thing , how can I wipe ubuntu off my computer, or have I just commited the cardinal sin for linux users
Vaughan

Please post this as a new question, follow this link
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+addquestion

It sounds like you have installed Ubuntu inside Windows rather than the full proper dual-boot. I always recommend to people that they keep Windows in their dual-boot because it takes a little while to get used to something so different.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WubiGuide#Uninstallation

Installing it inside Windows means that it has to rely on Windows systems working and as such it is a bit like building a house on shifting sands. A better way to try Ubuntu out is simply to start up your machine with the Ubuntu Cd in the Cd/dvd player, then choose the "Try Ubuntu without installing anything" this works a little bit slower than Ubuntu would from the hard-drive but at least it wouldn't need to worry about whether Windows has suffered from any of the usual Windows problems, such as viruses.

A much better way to install Ubuntu is to try the following, and notice that it also tries to avoid damaging the Windows
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootFromCD

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)