Hi

Tried to upgrade Ubuntu from (I think) 8.04 to 8.10 and it broke X. Or
it might have broken lots of things, but until X is fixed I don 't
know how bad the damage is.The upgrade went as far as 'restart' then I
got half the screen with "distribution upgrade" running in the bottom
bar and things froze.

GRUB menu options are
Ubuntu 8.10, kernel 2.6.27-14-generic
Ubuntu 8.10, kernel 2.6.27-14-generic (recovery mode)
Ubuntu 8.10, kernel 2.6.24-24-generic
Ubuntu 8.10, kernel 2.6.24-24-generic (recovery mode)

and earlier versions.

Have booted in recovery mode and done clean, dpkg, fsck and xfix.

dpkg tells me to run apt-get update, which I do, but says it can't
connect to thinsg like security.ubuntu.com

When I do resume normal boot, I get a blank grey screen of X starting,
and what looks like the circular doing-things mouse pointer against a
corrupted square, then the pointer goes away and system freezes.
Capslock and Ctrl-Alt-F4 to kill X (is Ctrl-Alt-F4 right ?) don't
work.

If I just do a normal boot not using recovery mode then I get the
ubunti round-table logo and incrementing bar logo, then it goes to
grey background and freezes.

I have got about 18.5 of the last 20 years' data backed up somewhere.

Please tell me there is a simple command-line incantation to make my
'puter happy again.

Owain

On 31 May, 10:02, spuorgelg...@gowanhill.com wrote:

> Please tell me there is a simple command-line incantation to make my
> 'puter happy again.

Booting from a live CD will allow you (a) to access your data and copy
it somewhere safe and (b) to try the "Repair a Broken Installation"
option at boot.

My guess is that the problem lies in /etc/X11/xorg.conf, which Ubuntu
8.04 uses but 8.10 doesn't. If you want to try a manual repair, I'd
suggest booting from the 8.10 live CD, then copying whatever xorg.conf
it uses onto your hard disk installation (backing up what's already
there, of course).

Ian

The Real Doctor wrote:
> My guess is that the problem lies in /etc/X11/xorg.conf, which Ubuntu
> 8.04 uses but 8.10 doesn't. If you want to try a manual repair, I'd
> suggest booting from the 8.10 live CD, then copying whatever xorg.conf
> it uses onto your hard disk installation (backing up what's already
> there, of course).


Thank you.

I've downloaded the 8.10 CD, which doesn't have a Repair Installation
Option. on trying to run that live in safe graphics mode I get a black
background with  4 purple and green ubunto logos at the top, an
"install" dialogue box with a orange title bar and grey background,
and a frozen circle pointer inside an orange square. system then
freezes. In ordinary mode I don't get the purple/green logos and
system freezes to black.

Mobo is ASUS mv2-mx with integrated graphics

Should I try going back to an 8.04 cd or just download the latest
version  and see if that will repair it?

Owain

On 31 May, 12:35, spuorgelg...@gowanhill.com wrote:

> Mobo is ASUS mv2-mx with integrated graphics
>
> Should I try going back to an 8.04 cd or just download the latest
> version  and see if that will repair it?

A quick google suggests that that motherboard has known problems with
Linux generally. Popular fixes seem to be (a) buying another
motherboard or (b) adding a graphics card ...

For now it sounds as if you are best sticking with 8.04.

Ian

The Real Doctor wrote:
> A quick google suggests that that motherboard has known problems with
> Linux generally. Popular fixes seem to be (a) buying another
> motherboard or (b) adding a graphics card ...

Well, it *did* work ...

My xconf file was empty of all useful content but suggested doing
sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-org

I might try that later

> For now it sounds as if you are best sticking with 8.04.


Downloading an .iso now ...

Owain

spuorgelg...@gowanhill.com wrote:
> The Real Doctor wrote:
> > A quick google suggests that that motherboard has known problems with
> > Linux generally. Popular fixes seem to be (a) buying another
> > motherboard or (b) adding a graphics card ...
> > For now it sounds as if you are best sticking with 8.04.
> Downloading an .iso now ...


Installed 8.04 (didn't have a repair option) and still getting
corrupted log in screen problems. I suspect that the previous upgrade
process may have mis-set some registers in the graphics and things are
going awry.

I don't know if 8.04 will have respected the /home which *should* have
been on a separate partition, but if it didn't then I have a new
doorstop.

Owain

spuorgelg...@gowanhill.com wrote:
> The Real Doctor wrote:
> > A quick google suggests that that motherboard has known problems with
> > Linux generally. Popular fixes seem to be (a) buying another
> > motherboard or (b) adding a graphics card ...
> > For now it sounds as if you are best sticking with 8.04.
> Downloading an .iso now ...


Installed 8.04 (didn't have a repair option) and still getting
corrupted log in screen problems. I suspect that the previous upgrade
process may have mis-set some registers in the graphics and things are
going awry.

I don't know if 8.04 will have respected the /home which *should* have
been on a separate partition, but if it didn't then I have a new
doorstop.

Owain

On 31 May, 18:57, spuorgelg...@gowanhill.com wrote:
> spuorgelg...@gowanhill.com wrote:
> > The Real Doctor wrote:
> > > A quick google suggests that that motherboard has known problems with
> > > Linux generally. Popular fixes seem to be (a) buying another
> > > motherboard or (b) adding a graphics card ...
> > > For now it sounds as if you are best sticking with 8.04.
> > Downloading an .iso now ...
>
> Installed 8.04 (didn't have a repair option) ...

Sorry. I mislead you. It's the alternate CD which has the "repair
broken installation" option. May be too late now ...

Ian

In article <f9b07788-0039-4406-bf7c-9bf01a46a0b4@r3g2000vbp.googlegroups
.com>, The Real Doctor  writes

>My guess is that the problem lies in /etc/X11/xorg.conf, which Ubuntu
>8.04 uses but 8.10 doesn't.

Not /another/ change!  What's it called now?

-- 
(\__/)   
(='.'=)  Bunny says Windows 7 is Vi$ta reloaded.
(")_(")  http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/windows_7.png

Mike Tomlinson wrote:

> In article <f9b07788-0039-4406-bf7c-9bf01a46a0b4@r3g2000vbp.googlegroups
> .com>, The Real Doctor  writes
> 
>>My guess is that the problem lies in /etc/X11/xorg.conf, which Ubuntu
>>8.04 uses but 8.10 doesn't.
> 
> Not /another/ change!  What's it called now?
> 

Modern versions of xorg don't /need/ xorg.conf unless there's something non-
standard about your set-up. In my case my monitor resolution doesn't fit 
into the standard VESA modes so I need to use a xorg.conf file but many will 
get away without any.

-- 
Geoff