startup frozen after upgrade from Ubuntu 8.04 to 8.10

when does it freeze?
can you provide more details?

Originally had Kubuntu loaded as well before upgrade. Goes to Kubuntu logo and the blue loading bar completes. Then the light orange screen comes up for a few seconds with the revolving cursor. Then the screen goes whitish and the cursor freezes. There is also a faint outline of the box where I would normally type my id and password. But nothing works.

Did you try fixing graphical problems in recovery mode?

may you past here the output of this command?

cat /boot/grub/menu.lst

if not, edit the grub menu at boot (pressing e) and try removing the word splash from the kernel line

--
enjoy
Dam

Can do the above command ok but no way of copying the pages of information for you. Is there a particular area of the menu list that I could copy manually for you. I am currently using my windows laptop to send this message.

Tried removing splash from kernal line but still not fixed.

Vihar

Thanks but don't know how to fix graphical problems. Need more info.

probably Vihar idea is the best at the moment.
He means that you should choose the "recovery" item when pc starts (just few seconds after turning on the pc, when you read "GRUB something").
Can you see it? can you describe what you see just after the bios?

I get 5 Options
Ubuntu 8.10, Kernel 2.6.27-14-generic
Ubuntu 8.10, Kernal 2.6.27-14-generic (recovery mode)
Ubuntu 8.10, Kernal 2.6.24-24-generic
Ubuntu 8.10, Kernel 2.6.24-24-generic (recovery mode)
Ubuntu 8.10, memtest86+

Selected recovery mode (2nd option) but screen scrolls too fast to see anything.

Hello,
As far as I can deduce you upgraded 8.04 to 8.10 through the net. This not always gives satisfactory results.

The last line of this 5 options is testing the RAM, it is not often needed.

The first is the normal booting with the last updated kernel.

The second line is the recovery mode which we are discussing. You should first choose it. When you enter it several options are availible. It's good may be to start from the option of checking the file system and when it's done to continue with the others up. One among them should be to try to repair graphical problems.

If that doesn't work try to load with the fourth line. It is the same kernel but probably with different hardware configuration, probably like the one you had in your 8.04. The first kernel should be with automatically set configuration created during upgrading.

And if that daesn't work too may be consider clean installation of Ubuntu from the LiveCD.

Good luck, Grayl.

Bah,
I forgot the good Damiano Venturin's advice. Try it please after the repairing graphical options (if it didn't work).

So stupid I am, we should describe how to edit GRUB.

When those five options appear after BIOS loading don't choose anyone of them but just press the key "e". This should enter you to the editing of grub. Be sure to read everything on the screen. Be carefull what you do, think twice because here's no "Undo" option.

After pressing "e" you have some lines one of them starting with "kernel". Edit it according to the guide on the screen. Damiano Venturin suggests you erase the word "splash" there.
 Remember you can always safely go back by Escape if you didn't change anything.

Hi

Going back to Recovery Mode from the the list of options for trying to boot into Ubuntu. You should get a lot of lines rushing by too fast to read, so that was ok up to there :) Hopefully this will get you to a disturbingly blue screen with a menu. Choose "fix x-server", as well as the options you tried before (such as in your original question where you said you'd tried "fix broken packages"). The "fix x-server" is the menu item that attempts to repair graphical problems.

Recovery mode also allows you to "Drop to a Root Shell", of course, which it sounds like you've been using already to enter commands. I think typing something like

apt-get -h | more

or even just

apt-get -h

might give some help on how to use apt-get to help fix this. Note the | key is either somewhere up around the enter key on laptops or american keyboards but is between the "z" and the "shift" key on uk keyboards. On the keyboard it usually has a little gap in the middle of the line.

Anyway, i think the command that might help fix this is

apt-get dist-upgrade

I'm not convinced that editing grub will really help, i think that's going off on a tangent but i'm not sure. I guess it would be nice to know if you have an Ubuntu Cd there, either 8.04 or any other might have a few tricks we could use here. Even the Cd of a completely different linux distro might be useful as a LiveCd to help with communications with this site ;) Please let us know if you do have an Ubuntu or other disro's cd and which version you think it might be ;)

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)