after installing 8.10, Ubuntu fails to load past the login screen

i have the same problem.

I am having the same exact problem too.

Please press ctrl+alt+f2 to get access to a pseudo-tty (terminal) then make login with your user and password:
(when you give your user password, you don't see nothing when you type it, then press enter)

Then type:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

give your user password when requested, you don't see nothing when you type it, then press enter.

Then type

sudo reboot

Hope this helps

Same problem and marcobra's suggestion didn't work sadly.

To amplify the problem I get to the login screen and after typing my username and pass it goes no further than a blank brown screen with a working cursor. I can alt+ctrl backspace and get back to the login screen.

Please press ctrl+alt+f2 to get access to a pseudo-tty (terminal) then make login with your user and password:
(when you give your user password, you don't see nothing when you type it, then press enter)

then type:

lspci

can you report here the row with the name of your vga video card

Please also tell if you are able to connect to the net to download updates...

Thank you

Using lspci I got the following applicable row:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc M76 [Radeon Mobility HD 2600 series]

In regard to being able to download updates I plugged an ethernet cable in and was able to ping google so I assume that, yes, I can download updates.

To further clarify my situation. This is a problem that has emerged after upgrading through the update manger from 8.04 to 8.10. In fact I am typing this on the same machine using my loop mounted backup of 8.04 (using compiz and everything). In case it is relevant my loop mounted back up was made using Bubakup.

Thanks for the helping so far

ok... first please be sure your system is updated/upgraded with latest upgrades:

Please press ctrl+alt+f2 to get access to a pseudo-tty (terminal) then make login with your user and password:
(when you give your user password, you don't see nothing when you type it, then press enter) then type:

sudo dpkg --configure -a
sudo apt-get -f install
sudo apt-get --fix-missing install
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get autoremove

Then type:

sudo apt-get remove --purge fglrx*
sudo apt-get remove --purge xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-radeon
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-ati
sudo dpkg-configure -phigh xserver-xorg
sudo reboot

on the Ubuntu 8.10 release note there is something regarding Ati
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/810#ATI%20%22fglrx%22%20video%20support
and this bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fglrx-installer/+bug/284408

Hope this helps

Thanks marcobra for the quick and comprehensive replies. I followed the instructions but the last one appears to have syntax problem. A variation I tried (from memory) was:

sudo dpkg -phigh xserver-xorg

And this said it was already installed and configured.

On rebooting the problem persists. Unless you advise other I'm guessing that I am suffering the bug you mentioned and will have to revert to 8.04. In your opinion will this bug be fixed some time in the lifespan of 8.10?

Thanks

sudo dpkg-configure -phigh xserver-xorg

The command:

sudo dpkg-configure -phigh xserver-xorg

returns

Sudo: dpkg-configure: command not found

Sorry...

sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

I had a similar issue and it turned out that the upgrade had not installed all the necessary packages.

I fixed it with:

sudo apt-get update
then
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Might be worth a try.

Tim

marcobra:
Going through the instructions again I noticed several things

1) The update is failing to download the intrepid-security/release repository with an authentication error
2) 'sudo apt-get install xserver-org' returns 'E: Couldn't find package xserver-org'
3) As you'd expect 'sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-org' fails saying that the package isn't installed.

At this stage the smart thing for me to do would be to just revert from back up back to 8.04 but I will persist for another couple of hours just for the benefit of providing potentially useful bug information.

Tim, thanks for the advice, didn't help, possibly because of the security repository update failure.

Thanks for all the help so far!

The solution for me in the end was restoring from back-up. I set a second partition with another copy of 8.04 to experiment with the upgrade. In a RTFM scenario sure enough the release notes were right and you needed to disable the ATI drivers before upgrading. With the ATI drivers disabled the upgrade worked fine.

Luckily I backed up just before I upgraded **phew**.

Release notes:
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/810#ATI%20%22fglrx%22%20video%20support