Reboot and now I'm stuck on a code screen? (antiX)
 

I installed antiX on my old computer and I have no clue what I'm doing.

I've been attempting to install Steam and all I have gotten is the Steam icon with what looks like a caution bar (yellow stripes) at the bottom. It won't open, and I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling. Nothing works.

So after browsing the internet I found stuff about installing driver packages. Since the computer has NVIDIA I found the drivers and installed, but I got a warning that they wouldn't work with my graphics card.

It listed that I needed either nvidia-legacy-304xx-driver or xserver-xorg-video-nouveau

I installed the nouveau one and nothing changed. Steam still didn't open and the site didn't say to do anything else. So I decided to try the NVIDIA legacy one, which got me the warning about nouveau and how I would need to reboot. I figured it was no big deal, so when it finished installing I rebooted. Now I'm stuck on a code screen. It boots up, asks for my login info, then waits for a command.

I am brand new to Linux (if that wasn't obvious) and I have very basic knowledge, if any, of computer code.

Please give me step-by-step directions on how to fix this if you can! Also, if someone knows how to get Steam working that would be awesome.

Thanks!

The old video card:
NVIDIA GeForce 7050 PV / NVIDIA nForce 630a

Hi

Could you give us a little more info?

What flavor of linux are you working with?
Does your computer have secure boot running? If so shut it off. It will make life a lot easier.

I have personally found installing the Nvidia driver from Nvidia's website to be far easier especially if you are required to use the legacy driver.

This isn't much but it's a start.
Post here when you make headway.

I'm assuming by flavor you mean the name... antiX and I went with the recommended Jessie one.

I don't know if I have secure boot running or not. Seeing as I'm stuck at the welcome code screen I'm not sure how to check either.

I get the usual list of code when booting, but then it asks for my username and password (when I have auto-login turned on, so normally it just goes to the desktop screen.) After I enter the login info it lists out last login info, the Linux info (I think,) what looks like a copyright/disclaimer for Linux, a no warranty warning, "No mail.", then it has the $ waiting for me to enter something.

I don't know what I need to enter to restore the usual desktop view so I can fix whatever I messed up.... not that I know what I messed up in the first place.

Attachment 19267
Not sure if this will help at all. The first thing I need to know how to get back to a normal desktop view.

After that if someone knows how to make Steam work please share.

Looks like you killed X during your playing around with video drivers. You can't get to the normal desktop view because it's broken, so the system is dropping you to a TTY instead. You'll have to use the TTY to fix the problem before the GUI will work again. The TTY behaves just like the terminal emulators you can open up in the GUI, you just won't be able to launch any X applications.

As for how to fix it, you should provide more information about what steps you took, exactly, that brought you to where you are now. What packages you tried to install, how you tried to install them, etc.

As I said before, I was trying to get Steam to work and I found somewhere online (can't remember where) to download a NVidia driver. I attempted to install it and I was warned that it wouldn't work with my graphics card and to instead install either nvidia-legacy-304xx-driver or xserver-xorg-video-nouveau.

I chose the nouveau one because the warning listed it as free. I installed it and nothing changed. Steam didn't work. So I installed the NVidia legacy one (I realize now I should have uninstalled the nouveau first, but I've been trying to get Steam to work for days and I got impatient.) This gave me the warning about nouveau and said it needed to be rebooted after install. Since that's all it said I figured it would be fine. After installing that nothing changed, and I rebooted. That's how I ended up where I am.

Would it be easier to just reinstall antiX? Or would that not fix anything?

:( I just wanted to run Steam...

I haven't used the nvidia proprietary driver in a while, but when I last used it it would back up the existing xorg.conf before creating the new one. If yours did that you could try reverting to the old xorg.conf. Did you see any messages related to this during the nvidia driver installation? What do you see in /etc/X11/?

No, I don't remember seeing anything about an xorg.conf.

I see a /tmp/.x11-unix/tmp/.ice-unix
and a etc/default/gdomap
and etc/default/saned

?

Here's another crappy picture. Is there something I can type in that can show /etc/X11/?
Attachment 19269
I've tried typing /etc/ and it just said that it's a directory, but when I type /etc/X11 or /etc/.X11 is says no such file or directory

I'm not talking about the boot process, I'm talking about when you installed the nvidia drivers. Have they changed significantly in the last couple of years? When I last did it you had to shut down X, switch to a TTY, and run the ncurses installation tool which compiled the driver for your kernel, backed up xorg.conf, wrote out a new one, etc. Did you not go through any of that?

You would use to see the files in that directory.

Oh wow. I was just in the synaptic package manager, found the packages for the drivers, installed them, then rebooted. I did nothing with an X or TTY or anything. Maybe that's what I'm missing...?

And it says ls cannot access /etc/x11

(Sorry for my extreme lack of Linux/code knowledge. I guess I should have been more hesitant about what I was doing.)

Ah, that was the proprietary driver from the antiX repository, not the one from nvidia.com. That explains the difference. You could try removing it with apt-get then.

Also - that should be "/etc/X11" with a capital X, Linux is case-sensitive.

inxi -F would have posted your system specs. sgfxi would have shown you what video chip and what nvidia proprietary driver was compatible
with your card.
http://smxi.org/docs/sgfxi-manual.htm
https://code.google.com/p/inxi/wiki/Installation

both scripts and smxi come stock in AntiX.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFW...KlXW5uE9opXukQ

Ok. I should have known to try it capitalized. This is what I see:
Attachment 19270

Also, apt-get brought up stuff, but I can't see half of it. I've never maneuvered through command prompts before so I have no clue how to see what I need to enter.

rokytnji: Funny you should post that YouTube account. That's how I figured out how to get Steam in the first place -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD0jf1yzhcE If you scroll you'll see my comment even.

Your second link mentions apt-get inxi. Is that what I should be typing.

As much as I would like to learn this stuff, right now I kind of just need directions.

"apt-get --help" will show you how to use it. If the output flies off the screen before you can read it, you can pipe it to "less" to let you scroll through the output on your own time: "apt-get --help | less".

You would need to search for the package name you want to remove with "apt-cache search" and then use "apt-get remove <package>" to remove it.

I would probably start by uninstalling the nvidia driver you installed and reinstalling the nouveau one instead.