no desktop in ubuntu 10.04

sumeet inani · 11-24-2010, 05:45 AM

I have installed ubuntu 10.04 & it has worked fine so far. Yesterday I saw that after booting I see a grey screen.Nothing else. I had autologin enabled. I went to virtual terminals (ctrl+alt+f1-6). They were fine.
In ctrl+alt+f7 i.e gui of x server , After few minutes the screen locks . I give password & then again the grey screen with a x shaped mouse cursor. 'df' command tells me the appropriate devices.

EDDY1 · 11-24-2010, 06:04 AM

You must've only installed x-server, right click on screen and you can access apps.
If you want gnome or ubuntu desktop do
"apt-get install gnome".
"start gdm"

leejohnli · 11-24-2010, 06:16 AM

or if you want kde desktop
apt-get install kde

TobiSGD · 11-24-2010, 07:51 AM

Did your desktop work before? If so it would help us to know which desktop environment you are using.

sumeet inani · 11-25-2010, 07:09 AM

everything was alright. i did not uninstall anything. i had GNOME. BTW . kde makes it kubuntu.

MTK358 · 11-25-2010, 04:05 PM

In one of the virtual terminals, try "killall X". See if that gets rid of the blank desktop and turns it into a command line. If that doesn't work, try "killall xorg" and "killall Xorg".

If it restarts itself, try running "killall gdm" before trying the above.

Then, run "xinit $(which xterm)". If everything's fine, it should come up with the gray screen but with a terminal window with no border inside it.

Try it and report back.

MTK358 · 11-25-2010, 04:05 PM

In one of the virtual terminals, try "killall X". See if that gets rid of the blank desktop and turns it into a command line. If that doesn't work, try "killall xorg" and "killall Xorg".

If it restarts itself, try running "killall gdm" before trying the above.

Then, run "xinit $(which xterm)". If everything's fine, it should come up with the gray screen but with a terminal window with no border.

Try it and report back.

sumeet inani · 11-26-2010, 08:11 AM

'killall X' and "killall xorg" gave error 'process not found'

'killall Xorg' changed GUI to desktop with computer picture background but there is no right or left click menu. The button at bottom right of shutdown restart does nothing. alt+f1 or alt+f2 brings up nothing. I believe these keyboard shortcuts are for GNOME so won't work when we have killed xserver.
Running 'xinit $(which xterm)' in virtual terminal brings no terminal in GUI.
It tells 'xserver already running'
Now what should I do ?