Fedora bubble loads, then blank screen with blinking cursor. no gui.

Vegan · 09-14-2010, 12:04 PM

My computer was working fine yesterday.
This morning i booted up and grub loaded fine, the fedora bubble did its loading thing.
after the bubble i get a blank screen with a flashing cursor in the top left.
I can ctrl+alt to a terminal screen, but i dont know what to do from there...
Please help. i dont want to have to reload Fedora again.

I am using Fedora 12 on a dual boot with win7
dual monitors
ati 4650 video card.
if you need any other info, just ask

ronlau9 · 09-14-2010, 12:18 PM

If Fedora started to boot what happens if you pressed the escape key ?
Give If it the chance to boot a other kernel than the standard kernel .
If it gives you that chance what happens if you choose a older kernel
After update a kernel Fedora left older kernels just in case you need them

Vegan · 09-14-2010, 12:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ronlau9

If Fedora started to boot what happens if you pressed the escape key ?
Give If it the chance to boot a other kernel than the standard kernel .
If it gives you that chance what happens if you choose a older kernel
After update a kernel Fedora left older kernels just in case you need them

I've never updated it (crappy internet)
so i don't think i will have the option for an older kernal

ronlau9 · 09-14-2010, 12:48 PM

But still it gives some options one of the options is to get the a command line
Ask fore the command line
Type on the command line verbose than continue the boot process.
Hopefully it comes with a error messages that give some clue of you're oproblem

Vegan · 09-14-2010, 01:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ronlau9

But still it gives some options one of the options is to get the a command line
Ask fore the command line
Type on the command line verbose than continue the boot process.
Hopefully it comes with a error messages that give some clue of you're oproblem

Awesome i will try that when i get home (i'm at work at the moment) and then post the results.
Thank you

Vegan · 09-14-2010, 07:46 PM

on the line
"Starting libvirtd daemon"
the screen starts flashing on and off.
then the screen turns off or it stops booting there and the screen stays on

jschiwal · 09-14-2010, 08:04 PM

One easy thing to check for is whether you have a partition that is full. A full partition could cause failures in services starting the need to write to /var/run, such as the pid file.

Vegan · 09-14-2010, 08:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jschiwal

One easy thing to check for is whether you have a partition that is full. A full partition could cause failures in services starting the need to write to /var/run, such as the pid file.

i wish it was that easy lol.
i have 94 gigs free though...

jschiwal · 09-15-2010, 02:38 AM

Since you can get to a virtual terminal, check the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file. The lines starting with (EE) are errors.

Still looking for simple solutions, I've dealt with personally, a syntax error in xorg.conf (or xorg.conf.d/*) can cause X to quickly abort. Other problems could be indicated. Look at the date and time the file was created. Is the file from the current boot time. There may be other problems indicated, such as a missing kernel module or xorg driver.

The dmesg command will list the boot messages from the kernel ring buffer. There may be more details there. There is also /var/log/messages. It is a running log of kernel messages.

ronlau9 · 09-15-2010, 06:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vegan

on the line
"Starting libvirtd daemon"
the screen starts flashing on and off.
then the screen turns off or it stops booting there and the screen stays on

No this is not what you should look for .
If you are there press c key it will gives you a command line .
The tab key give you the possible commands
One of the possible commands is verbose
Type that command on the command line
Fedora will continue the boot process in the verbose mode (Text mode}
First we can find where she stops booting .
Second we hope for use full error messages

Vegan · 09-15-2010, 11:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jschiwal

Since you can get to a virtual terminal, check the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file. The lines starting with (EE) are errors.

Still looking for simple solutions, I've dealt with personally, a syntax error in xorg.conf (or xorg.conf.d/*) can cause X to quickly abort. Other problems could be indicated. Look at the date and time the file was created. Is the file from the current boot time. There may be other problems indicated, such as a missing kernel module or xorg driver.

The dmesg command will list the boot messages from the kernel ring buffer. There may be more details there. There is also /var/log/messages. It is a running log of kernel messages.

It ended up not booting at all last night. i think i messed up grub through my probing around.
so i went in and reinstalled FC12

The strange thing is when i did go in to check the xorg file. i didn't have one. so i made one and it didn't make any difference.

i will stay subscribed to this thread though, since this isn't the first time this has happened to my system in the last couple weeks.
so i might be calling on you guys to help again...

Thank you

hughetorrance · 09-15-2010, 12:17 PM

I think you gave up on it far too soon,I have problems going for months and sometimes they are so old they just fade away and were never resolved,in this case though there was much still to try...i.e. I would have tried to boot up with the "vesa" driver LOL good luck

ps thats why we have multiple operating systems,its so as we don,t have any pressure when something goes wrong and its very handy to be able to use one system on another,like swap files and folders or whatever.

Vegan · 09-15-2010, 12:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hughetorrance

I think you gave up on it far too soon,I have problems going for months and sometimes they are so old they just fade away and were never resolved,in this case though there was much still to try...i.e. I would have tried to boot up with the "vesa" driver LOL good luck

ps thats why we have multiple operating systems,its so as we don,t have any pressure when something goes wrong and its very handy to be able to use one system on another,like swap files and folders or whatever.

I did give up way too early..
I started to regret it as soon as i started to reinstall it..
But i am going to put on another linux distro and have a triple boot so if something like this does happen again i will have another system to boot to. just dont know which one yet..
I just need to stop thinking of these glitches as problems and treat them as learning experiences.

Thank you for your advice.

And ps. i did try booting with vesa driver

hughetorrance · 09-16-2010, 10:43 AM

Don,t worry you are on a well trodden road and as you might have guessed I am still on it... there is always a distant horizon to reach for,you are right its about having fun and just being patient and persistent and sometimes knowing when to move on and find another way but having said that the day arrives when you can take it a bit easier,one thing is for sure and that is... its all worth it LOL

ps I have tons of problems but fortunately nothing that cant wait until I am ready... this is about having fun and learnig at the same time.

jschiwal · 09-20-2010, 11:19 AM

On newer distros, the old xorg.conf file is contained in separate files in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/.
The files represent the "Sections" of the old xorg.conf file.
e.g.:

Code:

/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-evdev.conf      /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-wacom.conf    /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-screen.conf
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/11-mouse.conf      /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-device.conf   /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-vmmouse.conf
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-synaptics.conf  /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-monitor.conf  /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/90-keytable.conf

So look at editing the 50-device.conf file to change the device driver. If you have a comprehensive /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, it will be used instead AFAIK.

Also the newer xorg server is supposed to configure itself on the fly when it starts but uses the config file(s) if they exist.

I have a laptop with a nvidia card, and a netbook with an ati card. In both cases, I've needed to add "nomodeset" to the kernel boot options.

You didn't respond about errors found in the /var/log/xorg.0.log file.