Ubuntu stuck in root mode, help!
 

Lately my Ubuntu has been starting in root mode, and I can't get out of it. Reboot doesn't work. Although I'm a bit of a linux newbie, I'm not entirely computer illiterate, but this has me stuck.

Any suggestions?

What do you mean by starting in root mode?

By default, the root account is not even enabled on Ubuntu. Do you recall changing anything?

Evo2.

When I start my Ubuntu, I see the brown and white ubuntu logo, and then the screen turns black and asks for my username and password in a command prompt.

The only thing I did in my last session was copy and paste a picture; however I don't believe that had an effect because it started like this once before I did that. Also, it even froze on me once before.

I'm thinking that I'll just wait until I reformat the hard drive and reinstall Ubuntu. I didn't store data on that partition anyway.

First chech <CTRL> + <ALT> + <F7> keys. What happens?
Second, log in as root, and type "gdm". What happens?

Nothing happens when I press <ctrl>+<alt>+<f7>

when I type "gdm", I get a message that goes, "Failed to acquire org.gnome.DisplayManager... some gibberish... Warning: Could not acquire name Bailing out."

A non-GUI boot is not "root mode" - you still log on as yourself. Try booting with the recovery option, and see what the last few messages are. At the menu, try continuing to a normal boot and see if it comes up. Else try looking at /var/log/Xorg.0.log - especically for EE entries.

I don't get it. What is root mode? Does it mean that you are logging in as root user?

To know what user you are, open a terminal and enter the command "whoami" (no quotes).

well, when the computer starts I can login to my username, but there's no visual desktop, just command lines. I can start in root mode through the recovery option...

anyway, I'm just going to reformat... it's about that time.