[Tfug] OS Puzzle

Mon Nov 3 16:17:02 MST 2008

Sorry, I just saw that you said Ctrl-Alt-F1 didn't do anything.  Try booting
into recovery mode (ESC when grub shows up), then you'll hopefully have
access to at least a terminal where you can poke around.

Jeff

On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 4:12 PM, Jeffry Johnston <tfug at kidsquid.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Was just upgrading an outdated system from 7.04, to 7.10, to 8.04, using
> aptitude.  I didn't reboot during the process until the end.  When it came
> up after the reboot, I had your tan screen with a mouse pointer.  I switched
> to a terminal, (Ctrl-Alt-F1), and ran "sudo aptitude", then pressed g (to
> apply changes), noticing that several pakcages were only partially upgraded
> (I remember bash and hal, in particular).  Anyhow, this time everything was
> able to complete the install.  So, I did "sudo reboot" and this time it
> booted to the desktop.
>
> Your underlying cause of failure might be quite different from mine..
> however where you're at suggests that X did load, so you should be able to
> run X apps, like synaptic (set up your DISPLAY environment variable, usually
> "export DISPLAY=:0.0").  I don't know if there is a way to search for broken
> packages via command line (I think I got lucky because I was using aptitude
> to do the dist-upgrade), but I know synaptic can do it.  You might also
> check whether gdm is running "pgrep gdm", or trying restarting it "sudo
> /etc/init.d/gdm restart"
>
> Good luck,
> Jeff
>
> On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 8:53 AM, <arizray at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> "Halt" as in the screen proceeds to the blank tan screen with a cursor
>> pointer in the middle. No further activity. ctrl+alt+f1 does not work or any
>> other key stroke. I guess it would be fair to say that the system freezes.
>> The rest of the code is not being executed after this point.
>>
>>  -------------- Original message ----------------------
>> From: "Jeremy D Rogers" <jdrogers at optics.arizona.edu>
>> > On Sat, Nov 1, 2008 at 8:56 PM, <arizray at comcast.net> wrote:
>> >
>> > > As a bit of history several people helped me to try and solve what I
>> > > perceived as a problem with the gnome desktop. Basically during boot
>> the
>> > > system halts right after login. I pc is a gateway P4 2.8ghz, 1.5gb
>> memory,
>> > > 80gb HDD machine. I was successfully using the machine until recently.
>> > >
>> > > After much troubleshooting I decided to swap the "bad" harddrive into
>> my
>> > > other machine and it worked perfectly. Had the Ubuntu (ver. 8.10)
>> progress
>> > > bar present during boot etc. Placing it the original machine still had
>> the
>> > > fault of course but I now know that the S/W on the drive is ok. T then
>> tried
>> > > to T/S further by removing the 2 memory cards, one at a time to see if
>> one
>> > > of the modules might be bad and no improvement or solution was found
>> so I
>> > > have to assume that the memory is o.k.
>> > >
>> > > The video card is part of the mother board and I don't know how to
>> test it
>> > > as it does display.
>> > >
>> > > I would like anyone's ideas.
>> > >
>> >
>> >
>> > When you say it 'halts' do you mean it freezes, or it shuts down? If it
>> > freezes, what does it look like? Does the screen go blank, or just stay
>> as
>> > it was, is there a delay, etc?
>> > When it boots, instead of loging into gnome, can you switch to a virt
>> > terminal (ctl+alt+F1) and login. See if it has the same behavior. Maybe
>> you
>> > can narrow it down some in such a way.
>> > JDR
>> >
>> >
>> > >
>> > > THANKS
>> > >
>> > > _______________________________________________
>> > > Tucson Free Unix Group - tfug at tfug.org
>> > > Subscription Options:
>> > > http://www.tfug.org/mailman/listinfo/tfug_tfug.org
>> > >
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: "Jeremy D Rogers" <jdrogers at optics.arizona.edu>
>> To: "Tucson Free Unix Group" <tfug at tfug.org>
>> Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2008 02:47:44 +0000
>> Subject: Re: [Tfug] OS Puzzle
>>
>> On Sat, Nov 1, 2008 at 8:56 PM, <arizray at comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>>> As a bit of history several people helped me to try and solve what I
>>> perceived as a problem with the gnome desktop. Basically during boot the
>>> system halts right after login. I pc is a gateway P4 2.8ghz, 1.5gb memory,
>>> 80gb HDD machine. I was successfully using the machine until recently.
>>>
>>> After much troubleshooting I decided to swap the "bad" harddrive into my
>>> other machine and it worked perfectly. Had the Ubuntu (ver. 8.10) progress
>>> bar present during boot etc. Placing it the original machine still had the
>>> fault of course but I now know that the S/W on the drive is ok. T then tried
>>> to T/S further by removing the 2 memory cards, one at a time to see if one
>>> of the modules might be bad and no improvement or solution was found so I
>>> have to assume that the memory is o.k.
>>>
>>> The video card is part of the mother board and I don't know how to test
>>> it as it does display.
>>>
>>> I would like anyone's ideas.
>>>
>>
>>
>> When you say it 'halts' do you mean it freezes, or it shuts down? If it
>> freezes, what does it look like? Does the screen go blank, or just stay as
>> it was, is there a delay, etc?
>> When it boots, instead of loging into gnome, can you switch to a virt
>> terminal (ctl+alt+F1) and login. See if it has the same behavior. Maybe you
>> can narrow it down some in such a way.
>> JDR
>>
>>
>>>
>>> THANKS
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Tucson Free Unix Group - tfug at tfug.org
>>> Subscription Options:
>>> http://www.tfug.org/mailman/listinfo/tfug_tfug.org
>>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Tucson Free Unix Group - tfug at tfug.org
>> Subscription Options:
>> http://www.tfug.org/mailman/listinfo/tfug_tfug.org
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Tucson Free Unix Group - tfug at tfug.org
>> Subscription Options:
>> http://www.tfug.org/mailman/listinfo/tfug_tfug.org
>>
>>
>
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