Hello, I was an IT tech for 30 years. I have been tired of microsoft issues for many years telling myself to switch to Linux and give it a try. After microsofts final round of updates for windows7 that rendered windows useless I dove in. I tried many different versions settling on Ubuntu. After missing my games I saw a Steam installer that could run Morrowind, I gave it a try. During the install the screens blanked and the keyboard was unresponsive. I made a big mistake, I pressed the reset button. I selected Ubuntu from grub and booted to a black screen with “Login:” no GUI. I logged in, but no idea what to do to fix it, if possible. SO, I rebooted to the Robo-11 install and started searching for anything that might help me not feel like PEBKAC. I found many “sudo” commands to try including a long list of them provided by someone in a similar situation. They did something, but still no GUI. Setting the default to “graphical” is seemingly ignored.

When I look at the Ubuntu partition there is a red X on the root folder and the scratch file. Both error with “Unreadable.” How do I repair/replace them? Some things I try tell me I need to enter the admin password to access. I enter my password and am told that's not the admin password. That is the only password I created. After 30 years of playing in microsofts sandbox that one is the most irritating. If anyone is interested in helping a stubborn, opinionated windows tech I would really appreciate it.

Thank you and take care,

Doug

If I'm reading your post correctly, you have installed Ubuntu and had it working for some time until you tried to install "Steam"

What release/version of Ubuntu are you using? Did you try to install Steam from some web site? If so, which one? It is available in the Ubuntu repositories.

WHat is Robo-11? And what do you mean by "scratch" file? You could be using the Ubuntu install DVD or USB to try to access.
Do you get any warning messages about a corrupt filesystem? Unreadable often means that so use the fsck command on the / filesystem partition. There are countless sites online explaining how to use the command and the various options available.

Are you booting into Ubuntu without the GUI when you get the error about the incorrect password?

1 members found this post helpful.

I have just the thing for you, yes you, my stubborn, opinionated Windows Tech friend.

A Beginners Tutorial with a target audience of someone who has never used the command line, like a Windows user, that takes you from installation of the FreeBSD Base System to a fully functional Fluxbox Window Manager FreeBSD desktop using ports to compile third party programs.

Building A FreeBSD Desktop From Scratch


Say... You aren't the Windows Tech guy that called me and said I had a virus in my FreeBSD box, are you? Does googling <removed> ring a bell?

1 members found this post helpful.

You should certainly run fsck on your Linux root partition as suggested by yancek. But I would also, in your situation, take a look at the Xorg log in /var/log/Xorg.0.log. Use the less command to page through it. Unlike the other system logs, the Xorg log is not cumulative; it represents only one run of X. The previous run is stored alongside with a .old suffix. The end of the file is the most useful part. It will show what the X server was trying to do when it failed.

1 members found this post helpful.

"If I'm reading your post correctly, you have installed Ubuntu and had it working for some time until you tried to install "Steam""

That is correct. I started with 20.04 upgraded to 20.10 then 21.04. Didn't like 20.10 it was
slower then 20.04 and it appeared that the focus stopped following the mouse.

"Did you try to install Steam from some web site?"

It was from the Ubuntu repositor in the games section.

"WHat is Robo-11?"

Robolinux 11 it is a shell running on an Ubuntu 20.04 core. Friendly to windows dropouts.

"And what do you mean by "scratch" file?"

Sorry, ment "swap file."

"Do you get any warning messages about a corrupt filesystem?

No, just a logon prompt. I will try the fsck command.

"Are you booting into Ubuntu without the GUI when you get the error about the incorrect password?"

Both, when I could boot into the GUI some things I tried required an admin account and would ask
for the admin password. My logon password was rejected, rather miffed at that. After being the
master of the universe it is irratating to not be.

Thank you for the reply, take care,

Doug

"I have just the thing for you, yes you, my stubborn, opinionated Windows Tech friend."

A fellow space traveler, thank you!

"Building A FreeBSD Desktop From Scratch"

I am off to read this next, thank you.

"Say... You aren't the Windows Tech guy that called me and said I had a virus in my FreeBSD box, are you? Does googling <removed> ring a bell?"

NO! Absolutely not! "<removed>?" You know the obvious responce is "wouldn't want to
embarrass the elephant."

Thank you, take care,

Doug

Robolinux 11 is actually an Ubunt derivative. It's main feature seems to be in bundling some kind of x86 VM (virtualbox?) and touting installing windows as a feature.

1 members found this post helpful.

"take a look at the Xorg log in /var/log/Xorg.0.log."

Last 3 lines:

[ 4016.639] (WW) xf86CloseConsole: KDSETMODE failed: Input/output error
[ 4016.639] (WW) xf86CloseConsole: VT_GETMODE failed: Input/output error
[ 4016.640] (II) Server terminated successfully (0). Closing log file.

However, the first line is:

[ 186.876] _XSERVTransSocketUNIXCreateListener: ...SocketCreateListener() failed

Near end:

[ 187.157] (II) VESA(0): VBESetVBEMode failed, mode set without customized refresh.


"Unlike the other system logs, the Xorg log is not cumulative; it represents only one run of X."

That is sweet!


"I'm just a little old lady. Don't try to dazzle me with jargon."

You do know that is an invitation to start talking shop, like PEEKs and POKEs

Thank you, Take care,

Doug

That's what I meant

Take care,

Doug

During the installation of Ubuntu, the install requires you to create one user and requires a password for that user. That would be the user that has admin/root permissions. Logging in as that user doesn't give root permissions, you need to use sudo to do that. If your password for the primary user is rejected, that is another problem.

1 members found this post helpful.

I ran:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall xserver-xorg

A long list flashed up the display which ended with:

Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation (um, I would not be supersized) or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
xserver-org-input-mtrack : Conflicts: xserver-xorg-input-multitouch but 1.0~rc3-2 is to be installed
xserver-xorg-video-nvidia-390 : Conflicts: nvidia-driver-binary
Conflicts: xorg-driver-binary
xserver-xorg-video-nvidia-418-server : Depends: libnvidis-cfgi-418-server (= 418.197.02-0ubuntu1) but it is not installable Conflicts: nvidia-driver-binary
Conflicts: xorg-driver-binary
xserver-xorg-video-nvidia-450-server : Depends: libnvidis-cfgi-450-server (= 450.119.04-0ubuntu0.21.04.2) but it is not installable
Conflicts: nvidia-driver-binary
Conflicts: xorg-driver-binary
xserver-xorg-video-nvidia-460-server : Depends: libnvidis-cfgi-460-server (= 460.80-0ubuntu0.21.04.2) but it is not installable
Conflicts: nvidia-driver-binary
Conflicts: xorg-driver-binary
xserver-xorg-video-nvidia-460-server : Depends: libnvidis-cfgi-460-server (= 460.73.01-0ubuntu1) but it is not installable
Conflicts: nvidia-driver-binary
Conflicts: xorg-driver-binary
xserver-xorg-video-nvidia-465-server : Depends: libnvidis-cfgi-465-server (= 465.27-0ubuntu0.21.04.2) but it is not installable
Conflicts: nvidia-driver-binary
Conflicts: xorg-driver-binary
E: Unable to correct problem, you have held broken packages. (sigh)

Take care,

Doug

When I install software I get the enter password prompt, but there are times that when trying to enter a folder I basically get access denied enter password and my password does not work.

Thank you, Take care,

Doug

They also used to have some sort of freemium concept (not sure if they still do), (trying) to make money with FLOSS.

If you have an option in grub to load one of the other older vmlinuz and intrid do that first
your nvidia drivers are in the intrid if not. read below
Well man boot your system then in your black screen login and then type.
sudo passwd
type in a password for root
you will not see it but type it in twice like it asks.
now you have a root user.
looks like you nvidia installed and you did an update that ubuntu borked or you borked.
. this means the the xconfig is still there to run the nvidia driver and the driver is not installed for the new kernel
you upgraded with.

remove the rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Then you need to remove the file may have many names. Nvidia names it.
/etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-disable-nouveau.conf
so any way run
ls /etc/modprobe.d/
see what in it.
rm /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-disable-nouveau.conf
now reboot
you will be using wayland or what ever nouveau driver.
all gui will be back.
you could do this as sudo also.

At this point you should be able start all over.
if for some reason god knows how they spoon feed this distro no one learns linux system.
Then they added nvidia-drm.modeset=1 to to grub command line.
you should then be pushed to the vesa sever.
now if this fails.
vesa server plenty good to get your gui going.
Or!
At boot time when you see it display grub.
Press tab button the then on the entry press "e" some ubuntu's use just tab.
you will see the nvidia-drm.modeset=1 just delete it.
Tell you the truth since there is no installed nvidia I doubt you will need to.
that just tells the kernel to load drm at boot.
Ubuntu has different runlevels then linux.
basically have runlevel 1 maintenance
the runlevel 2 is like 3 in ubuntu . runlevel 4 is gui login. 5 is halt system 6 is reboot.
you are in runlevel 3 no gui because you system is trying to load nvidia drivers that are no longer there.
I hope this helps you.

Hi lovemeslk, the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and the /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-disable-nouveau.conf aren't there. The xorg.cont.d folder is empty. The /etc/modprob.d folder contains these files:

alsa-base.conf
amd64-microcode-blacklist.conf
blacklist.conf
blacklist-ath_pci.conf
blacklist-firewire.conf
blacklist-framebuffer.conf
blacklist-modem.conf
blacklist-oss.conf
blacklist-rare-network.conf
intel-microcode-blacklist.conf
iwlwifi.conf

I did find that the /etc/x11/xsm/default-display-manager contained this single line "/usr/sbin/gdm3" there isn't a /usr/sbin/gdm3 file or folder. I installed it. The GUI is back! Thank you for your help.

Take care,

Doug