Can't login again - X server

Am running Freespire Alpha and was trying to get Beryl to work with my Nvidia card. Tried running googleearth and got a black screen. Usually this recovers, but not this time.

Upon reboot i get the splash screen with the progress bar, then the next screen which indicates that the services are starting, but after a couple of seconds, it goes to black screen with cursor.

i just want to change my monitor/card configuration back to what it was before i tried installing Beryl and Nvida drivers... i accessed this hd from another one and reenabled my old xorg.conf. No go.

The login process eventually gets me to some sort of bash script, but i'm even more lost there. Since it's an Alpha i'm just considering a reinstall -- Freespire only takes 10 min., but this happens pretty often & i'd like some sort of step-by-step to recover from this annoying situation. My card is an Nvidia GEForce 4000.

Any help would be appreciated! Have a great afternoon!

Well, on Debian, I typically hit CTRL+ALT+F1 to get to a console. Then login and su to root. Then Debian has a tool you can use to reconfigure the display dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg. Not sure if they've changed the name of the xserver package in freespire or not. You should be able to check for the package name by doing a dpkg --get-selections |grep xorg and see what they call it...

Plj -- thanks for such a quick reply! Will print this and try it out and see what happens!

Have a great afternoon up there in WA!

As pljvaldez said, when you boot up into this "black screen with cursor" press CTRL+ALT+F1 to go to tty1 and login as root. But you do not need to run dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg as this will just reconfigure itself. So instead, you need to reconfigure manually your driver so just edit your xorg.conf file and replace the nvidia driver with nv or vesa to get your display temporarily back on (the file is /etc/X11/xorg.conf). This also might not do anything so you might have to uninstall beryl temporarily using apt-get, aptitude, or dselect. If you plan to reinstall beryl with the exact same settings/configs dont purge when removing. Purging removes all configurations and settings.

Thanks, Billy! Yea, i went through the rigamarole of the above post, reconfigure... but it didn't take. Then i thought about disinstalling beryl or the nvidia drivers and when i consulted theis post, there it was! Your suggestion.

i know it's apt-get remove, but don't know the names of the packages... i'll try something similar to dpkg --get-selections |grep xorg & see if i can find it (them).

Thanks again and i'll post back if i have any negative results.

Have a great afternoon!

Since the above actions didnt help you, Xorg is not the problem here, it is Beryl and its settings/config. You're looking for xorg package with that grep command. You need to remove and purge Beryl and its other apps (beryl-manager, etc). I'm not sure what the names are for these as I run Compiz, but the easiest way (that I know of) is to run dselect.

dselect is actually very simple to use. Just login to tty1 as root and type dselect - You will be presented with a menu, since this is obviously your first run you will need to run the "Update" option. This will update your apt sources and build a dselect database of the packages (even if you've run apt-get update you still need to update dselect to update its database). After this run the "Select" option. A help screen will come up, just press the spacebar unless you really want to read it all. After the help screen you will be presented with a HUGE list of all the available packages. You can scroll through these as they are all separated by category. The easiest way to find any and all beryl packages is to start a search query by hitting the / button. A red bar will appear at the bottom of the screen awaiting your input. Type the word beryl and press enter. You will be taken to the first result after your cursors current posistion (which means you need to be at the top of the list to get an accurate search form the beginning of the list). When you have a package highlighted press the - button to remove that package or press the _ button to remove AND purge that package. If you are presented with another help screen that means the package you are trying to move has other packages that are dependent of it, which will automaticall then set - (remove) to those packages. It will present you with a list of these packages that looks similar to the main list. Just go throu the list and set _ to all beryl packages and only beryl related packages. Press enter once done with this list to return to the main list. Now back in the main list you will need to press the \ (not /) button to go to the next result of the search query. keep pressing \ to go to the next result making sure to purge out all beryl packages and its dependents. Once finished press enter to return to the main screen. Next choose "Install" and it will then run through the normal apt-get stuff of removing your packages.

Trust me, sounds like a pain in the arse, and it can be, but with time and a few attempts you will find its much easier than I make it sound.

There are obviously other choices out there besides dselect which some people find easier. Aptitude is one of them. I honestly dont use aptitude, so I cant even begin to attempt to explain it to you. Might be worth looking into though, if you cant figure out dselect.

Another method I know of is just doing it manually with the apt-get command. But obvisouly you need to know specific package names to use this method. This is when apt-cache comes in handy. You are looking for beryl packages or packages with the word "beryl" in them so this would be the command:

apt-cache search beryl

This will present you with a list of installed packages with "beryl" in the package name along with a brief description of what the package is. Now you have a list of specific packages to remove with apt-get remove --purge

Here is an example list of my compiz packages:

debdesk:~# apt-cache search compiz
compiz-core - OpenGL window and compositing manager
compiz-dev - OpenGL window and compositing manager - development files
compiz-gnome - OpenGL window and compositing manager - GNOME window decorator
compiz-gtk - OpenGL window and compositing manager - Gtk window decorator
compiz-plugins - OpenGL window and compositing manager - plugins
libcm-dev - Support code for compositing managers - development files
libcm7 - Support code for compositing managers
pdfcube - PDF document viewer with 3D effects
compiz - OpenGL window and compositing manager.
compiz-manager - Compiz-Quinn launcher and manager.
cgwd-themes - Theme files for cgwd

You need to purge these packages so you can erase all beryl settings/configs you can saved on the computer. These Beryl settings are causing Beryl to "break" your X session. Remove beryl, restart the computer to make sure everyhting comes back up correctly, then you can reinstall beryl again once everything is fixed. Its like wiping the slate clean.

Billy, wow! What a great reply -- so detailed and just right for someone who is used to point and click. Thanks a lot and i'll try it tonight!

Have a great afternoon!