ReleaseRoderick Posted May 16, 2015 Share Posted May 16, 2015 I'd installed Ubuntu Tweaks (http://ubuntu-tweak.com) for the simple pleasure of getting shot of the Guest account and the nasty sound effect from the 14.04 log-in screen and it worked so well I did same with two more 14.04 machines. One of them has lost her graphics, she goes black screen after log-in, but no way will she go into Fail Safe mode so that I can get to re-install the driver. F1 > Advanced options for Ubuntu > 3. 13. 0-52-generic (recovery mode) > Run in failsafe graphics mode > Enter but I end up with a black screen and a top left blinking dash curser. There are no doubt, many ways to get into the settings to update the Nvidia driver..... Can I please have the easiest method... Kindest, Ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Sorry I am not for sure but this may help some: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Troubleshooting/VideoDriverDetection The problem is that your driver installation is messed up and you cannot get to the login manager, hence the black screen I believe on Ubuntu you can hold shift at boot, and it should bring up the bootloader. Then you can boot to a root shell prompt to try to fix the mess.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Actually, hold down shift and then select Advanced options for Ubuntu. Then select recovery mode which will boot to a recovery menu. You then can try Run in failsafe graphic mode or drop to root shell prompt to fix your issues. I just tested it on Ubuntu 15.04 under Virtualbox but it should be the same for your version. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReleaseRoderick Posted May 17, 2015 Author Share Posted May 17, 2015 (edited) Thank you securitybreach. Hold down Shift does nothing on this machine. As I mentioned, no way will she go into Failsafe but as you advise, I can get to Drop to root shell prompt. Can you please advise my next move here as root shell is a whole new ball game for me. If I could get to Terminal I would use: sudo nvidia-settings --uninstall sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia* sudo apt-get remove --purge xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv sudo apt-get install nvidia-common sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-nouveau sudo apt-get install --reinstall libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri xserver-xorg-core sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg This is a remedy for this very machine that Urmas sorted for me many moons ago when I could call up Terminal. Kindest, Ian Edited May 17, 2015 by ReleaseRoderick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atiustira Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 (edited) Ctrl + Alt + F1 should get you to tty1. sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install gnome-session-flashback reboot your PC. @login prompt: Click the image on the upper right of the name Select: GNOME Flashback (Metacity) This may help I hope. To exit tty1 press Ctrl+ Alt + F7 Looks like Unity has trouble with certain Nvidia driver's. Edited May 17, 2015 by atiustira Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Thank you securitybreach. Hold down Shift does nothing on this machine. As I mentioned, no way will she go into Failsafe but as you advise, I can get to Drop to root shell prompt. Can you please advise my next move here as root shell is a whole new ball game for me. If I could get to Terminal I would use: sudo nvidia-settings --uninstall sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia* sudo apt-get remove --purge xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv sudo apt-get install nvidia-common sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-nouveau sudo apt-get install --reinstall libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri xserver-xorg-core sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg This is a remedy for this very machine that Urmas sorted for me many moons ago when I could call up Terminal. Kindest, Ian Do all of those except leave of the sudo part as your already root 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReleaseRoderick Posted May 17, 2015 Author Share Posted May 17, 2015 A-ha, I'd been wanting to learn a bit more about root and what it is used for. I'm using the hard drive from sick machine to write this as I've put it into another sister machine of the same make and modal. I'll make sure I have full back up from it then put the h/drive back and try and repair the driver. Kindest, ian 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atiustira Posted May 18, 2015 Share Posted May 18, 2015 Let us know how that works out for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 A-ha, I'd been wanting to learn a bit more about root and what it is used for. I'm using the hard drive from sick machine to write this as I've put it into another sister machine of the same make and modal. I'll make sure I have full back up from it then put the h/drive back and try and repair the driver. Kindest, ian Sudo basically gives you temporary root access if your user is in the sudoers file. Read this to understand the difference between root user and temp sudo root access: http://www.howtogeek...etween-sudo-su/ Su switches you to the root user account and requires the root account’s password. Sudo runs a single command with root privileges – it doesn’t switch to the root user or require a separate root user password. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReleaseRoderick Posted May 28, 2015 Author Share Posted May 28, 2015 I apologise for not responding earlier. Such good info in here. Back to the matter a.s.a.p Kindest, ian 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReleaseRoderick Posted May 28, 2015 Author Share Posted May 28, 2015 nvidia-settings--uninstall gives up 'command not found' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunrat Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 nvidia-settings--uninstall gives up 'command not found' apt-get purge nvidia-settings Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 nvidia-settings--uninstall gives up 'command not found' Also, your missing a space there. It should be nvidia-settings --uninstall Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReleaseRoderick Posted May 28, 2015 Author Share Posted May 28, 2015 nvidia-settings--uninstall gives up 'command not found' Also, your missing a space there. It should be nvidia-settings --uninstall My bad, securitybreach nvidia-settings--uninstall gives up 'command not found' apt-get purge nvidia-settings Please tell me where in the above list of commands I should enter apt-get purge nvidia-settings please Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 Please tell me where in the above list of commands I should enter apt-get purge nvidia-settings please The apt-get purge nvidia-settings is the native way to do it on Debain(uses debian's package manager instead of the universal, proprietary nvidia built-in command way that I posted) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReleaseRoderick Posted May 29, 2015 Author Share Posted May 29, 2015 (edited) It's a bright young morning here in outer London.......I wonder what will come along and spoil it! What I need is a bright young geek aged 8 or thereabouts, but they are all in school, all in the U.S.A. Well, lets battle on.... Here I am in Recovery Menu(filesystem state: read only) resume Resume normal boot clean Try to........ dpkg Repair.... failsafeX Run in failsafe graphic mode (tried everything to get this to show but get black scrn) fsck Check all...... grub Update grub ......... network Enable netw.......... root Drop to root shell prompt (use keyboard-click OK) system-s Sys..... use keyboard-click OK gives me: root@ian-PX629AA-AA-ABU-SR1429UK-GB520:~# (I type....) apt-get purge nvidia-settings (click Enter) W: Not using locking for read only lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock E: Unable to write to /var/cache/apt/ E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened. root@ian-PX629AA-A........etc... What on Earth am I doing wrong..? Edited May 29, 2015 by ReleaseRoderick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 Roderick, I experienced something similar in Ubuntu 12.04 and struggled to get it remedied. It seems like everyone is providing good advice, but you are still experiencing this issue. Perhaps it's because the overall advice is good, but the specific implementation needs tweaked for Ubuntu? I can't remember exactly how I solved my issues, but I do recall booting into a recovery mode that brings up a terminal. Within the terminal, the 2nd answer in this link looks very familiar to me: http://askubuntu.com/questions/579169/after-ubuntu-14-04-update-nvidia-331-gives-black-screen-at-startup With the proprietary nvidia driver removed, Ubuntu defaults back to the FOSS driver upon reboot. So take good notes about how you solve this problem. If you want to reinstall nvidia drivers, it may simply have been a corrupted nvidia file setting, and you're good to go with a reinstallation; or it could be a bug introduced in a newer version of driver, forcing you to stick with the older version. Either way, you'll want to easily and quickly remember how to purge nvidia again. It doesn't seem fair that a 3-5 minute fix should take hours/days of googling, troubleshooting, trial & error?! Nvidia drivers have been buggy for awhile now. They're getting better, but I prefer to stick with FOSS drivers. While I tend to agree with everyone here regarding nvidia as your culprit, the other problem you COULD be having, which I haven't seen mentioned here, is your login manager. Somehow, the lightdm login manager got corrupted on my wifes Ubuntu 12.04 laptop, providing a black screen where the login should've been, and I just couldn't get it repaired. So I removed lightdm and installed gdm...problem solved. It's the old gnome desktop manager; it isn't as "pretty" as lightdm, but you only see the login screen for about 5 seconds on those rare occassions of reboot, and it works. I'm a function over form kinda guy, so I never bothered to figure out what was going on with lightdm. But this is done the same way as the video driver. Login to terminal at boot and sudo apt-get remove lightdm then sudo apt-get install gdm Reboot, and you should see the good old familiar Gnome Desktop Manager login screen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReleaseRoderick Posted May 29, 2015 Author Share Posted May 29, 2015 (edited) You've all been great Open Source dudes on this anomaly. Hedon J, the pain is that I cannot call up Terminal. I don't get to a point where I can use C+Alt+T and holding Shift on Boot does nothing. All I can get to is `Drop to root shell prompt` and that gives me root@ian-PX629AA-AA-ABU-SR1429UK-GB520:~# then whatever I type and Enter isn't responding as one would expect. (I have a real Witchy-Woman in the workings..) As you mentioned in your full and well written post, I had a nvidia anomally way back when went from 12.04 to 13.04 and the procedure I gave in post#4 was what Urmas prescribed and at that time I could C+Alt+T no prob. It must be me not comprehending `root` procedure now. I'm not throwing in the towel. I've swapped out the h/drive to another machine and I'm useing it here, and put a spare h/drive in it's place. It has'nt made any difference, so I can continue to battle till Lord Nelson gets his eye back. P.S I've learn't that I sudu apt-get xxx in Terminal, but only use apt-get xxx in root. Edited May 29, 2015 by ReleaseRoderick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 Hedon J, the pain is that I cannot call up Terminal. I don't get to a point where I can use C+Alt+T and holding Shift on Boot does nothing. All I can get to is `Drop to root shell prompt` and that gives me root@ian-PX629AA-AA-ABU-SR1429UK-GB520:~# then whatever I type and Enter isn't responding as one would expect. (I have a real Witchy-Woman in the workings..) Root shell prompt is the terminal as root. Your just not in a graphical mode with a terminal window. It boots straight into a root terminal. Shell is just another word for Terminal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReleaseRoderick Posted May 29, 2015 Author Share Posted May 29, 2015 A-ha...So even in a non-graphical mode, i.e Terminal, the commands would not respond as we would expect either? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 Right Try this in the root shell: apt-get remove --purge nvidia-* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 I think you just need to type this in terminal/shell: sudo apt-get purge nvidia* P.S. You use CTRL-ALT-T to get to terminal from within GUI. You use CTRL-ALT-F1 to log OUT of GUI and get to shell/terminal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReleaseRoderick Posted May 29, 2015 Author Share Posted May 29, 2015 Ho-Ho....I needed to run grub Update grub then apt-get remove --purge nvidia-* and apt-get purge nvidia both brought about some action. I have also run apt-get autoremove which worked well. I await your leisure ....Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atiustira Posted May 30, 2015 Share Posted May 30, 2015 Ctrl + Alt + F1 should get you to tty1. sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install gnome-session-flashback reboot your PC. @login prompt: Click the image on the upper right of the name Select: GNOME Flashback (Metacity) This may help I hope. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReleaseRoderick Posted May 30, 2015 Author Share Posted May 30, 2015 Hi, atiustira Please tell me what I hope to achieve with Gnome Flashback? I ask because I now have another h/drive in the machine and in an effort to make something work, having found she won't respond to the commands in grub the way one would expect, I installed edubuntu14.04LTS which means I can now get to Ctl+Alt+T no prob. After install the screen graphics are good but play up if I open Dash Search. Firefox works fine on google.com start page. I've tried all the options in Settings >Software and Updates >Additional Drivers And also tried all I know to do in Terminal. Kindest ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted May 30, 2015 Share Posted May 30, 2015 GNOME Flashback (previously called GNOME fallback mode) is a shell for GNOME 3. The desktop layout and the underlying technology is similar to GNOME 2. It doesn't use 3D acceleration at all, so it's generally faster and less CPU intensive than GNOME Shell with llvmpipe https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GNOME_Flashback Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReleaseRoderick Posted May 31, 2015 Author Share Posted May 31, 2015 (edited) Still working on this anomaly. Got it all fine until I click Dash then the graphics go to pot. Have some screenshots, I'd love to know how to post them without joining up to some 3rd party site. I'm on the actual computer now, sending this - So there cannot be too much adrift...certainly not enough to involve Metacity...? Kindest, ian Edited June 4, 2015 by ReleaseRoderick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted May 31, 2015 Share Posted May 31, 2015 Have some screenshots, I'd love to know how to post them without joining up to some 3rd party site. Well you have to use another site to host the images as I would imagine Scot would run out of run rather quickly. Most of us prefer imgur.com as it is simple to use, can do private and public uploads and has unlimited picture hosting; all for free. Imgur is one of the biggest sites on the Internet. In September, it passed 100 million unique visitors per month, making it bigger than Reddit. http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/09/previously-24-a-year-imgur-pro-is-now-free/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReleaseRoderick Posted June 4, 2015 Author Share Posted June 4, 2015 (edited) My graphics just got well again. I found the missing 4 page instruction that Urmas gave me from way back in the day and although I cannot quantify exactly how much it helped I rather feel it did some good. I did remember to reboot, but things were still not spot-on. However....... I have a UberStudent 4.1 disc ( 2 actualy, 32 and 64 bit ) and knowing I could'nt do much more harm to this machine I installed away to my hearts content and yes, that's right......It worked. I tried-twiddled-twisted-typically tormented and almost tortured everything Uber gives the Student and it is still smirking at me. So full marks and more to the dude (Stephen Ewen) who designed this. www.uberstudent.com/about Edit. Incorrect link. My bad. Thank you to securitybreach Edited June 4, 2015 by ReleaseRoderick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted June 4, 2015 Share Posted June 4, 2015 Your missing an m in your uberstudent url. It should be http://www.uberstudent.com/about As long as it works for you, that is all that matters... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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