LinuxQuestions.org - Ubuntu boots to Bash after update

- Linux - Newbie (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/)

- - Ubuntu boots to Bash after update (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/ubuntu-boots-to-bash-after-update-855131/)

Ubuntu boots to Bash after update

I installed Ubuntu via Wubi on my Windows 7 machine a few months ago, and it's always worked fine. I've been able to boot into it without any issues and update it regularly.

I ran the update manager again today and when I rebooted for the changes to take effect, my start up stopped at a Bash screen. I tabbed to see commands, but have no idea what to do, and don't really understand why it's not just booting into Ubuntu as it always did.

I assume the update has broken something. What do I do, without ruining my Ubuntu settings or files?

Sorry to be so ignorant! I did search for similar topics, but nothing recent seemed to fit my problem, and the Linux site is currently down for me.

Thanks!
Julie

Well, the command to start the windowy stuff that you normally use (called the "X server") is

Code:

sudo startx

There should be an error somewhere that will tell you what's going wrong - it may tell you when you try to start the X server, or maybe it scrolls past as you boot up. If the X server starts without a hitch, then perhaps typing

Code:

dmesg | tail

(which gives you the bootup messages) will have a hint as to the source of the error. 'tail' prints the last 10 lines of a long piece of text - if it's not in those lines, you can try

Code:

dmesg | tail -n K | less

, replacing K with the number of lines you want to read. Gradually increase K until you find the error :) I have 802 lines total on my dmesg...

Useful commands for using the shell can be found here - it's a good general summary of background linux knowledge, but you're interested in section 9, "Alphabetical List of Principal Commands". The key ones for you to just move around are:

Code:

 cd - move to a different folder

 ls - list all the files in a folder

 pwd - tell you the current folder you're in

 man - Everyone's best friend, it tells you how to use a command (ie. "man ls" tells you what ls does, and its options)

 apropos - searches all the man pages for keywords 

 less - "Pages" text: when a command provides too much info for one screen (*cough* apropos) then you can "pipe" it through less, like we did earlier, to scroll through it at your own speed. For example: "apropos mail | less"

Hopefully these will help you get around on the shell, and to fix your problem :)

This is a drawback of wubi, that it is a file on windows. Can you choose a different kernel at boot time? Normally I would be inclined to run fsck -y to try to repair the broken bits but I don't see how you umount the dev on wubi, maybe someone else has some better ideas.

Fred.

For reference ..
This also happened to me last night - two days after going from Wubi & XP to a full install (via Live CD, wiping entire drive). So not so sure it's Wubi dependent.
Also unsure of the exact cause but occured after had added VLC via synaptic and also had installed Adobe Flash via its website, and then the security updates that were triggered after, which requested the restart.

Upon booting would just hang after 'Battery check [ok]', and then maybe once out of every 5 resets would make it as far as the bash shell.

Linux newbie so thanks for the info on xwindows - i'll give it a go tonight and if i find the issue i'll post ... if can't sort it i'm not so far down the road that i can't do a full re-install.
Cheers
Markos

Good luck Markos,

If you find you're re-installing often, then you might want to consider reading up on partitioning. My computer is partitioned so that I have one "/home" partition (so everything found in my /home folder once I've booted is on its own partition) and then a different root partition for each linux OS I have installed. This means I can:
a) Have the same documents on all my distros without having the information duplicated in each partition (probably less of a concern for you)
b) Re-install any of the distributions without damaging any of my documents or the other distributions

Explaining how to do this would be going off-topic, and may not even be of interest to you at this stage, but if you were interested in doing so and couldn't work out how to do it properly then you could start a new thread explaining what you were stuck on :)

Cheers for the info Snark - ill look into partitions once i get a little more comfortable!

For reference again, i figured out my issue after a full reinstall ... i'd downloaded the propriety flgrx ATI graphics card driver (Thinkpad T500) without realising that there was already an open source alternative installed as standard. That update seemed to have messed up my display settings in some way which caused the startx command to come back with a 'No screens' error.
Tried looking through the xconf.org file but was out of my depth and had no other internet at home to reference, so a reinstall sorted everything out .. i'll read up a little more before just installing any updates that pop up in future!!

Cheers
Markos