black screen after boot after changing desktop settings (solved)

[mike_cjo]

Hi,

ive got a bit of a problem with my install of intrepid.

I changed the graphics settings to turn on more of he fancy desktop options.

as soon as i had applied the changes i was left with a black desktop.

my mouse is there and works and programs are there and i can alt tab between hem. i just cant see anything except black!

Im guessing that i have turned on options my laptop cant handle so its not displaying right.

How can i turn the options back down to a lower setting?

Any help would be much appreciated!!!

Many thanks
Mike

[dibl]

Re: black screen after boot after changing desktop settings

Im guessing that i have turned on options my laptop cant handle so its not displaying right.

That sounds like a good guess to me. There are a couple of approaches to fix it. Perhaps the easiest would just be to boot the Live CD, open /etc/X11/xorg.conf, and copy that file to a USB stick. Then boot your system, log in to the command line (text mode) and copy the xorg.conf file over into your real system's /etc/X11/ directory. Learning the "cp" command, and the path to your USB stick, should keep you off the streets for an hour!

OK, seriously, if you change directory "cd" to the /media directory, you should be able to list "ls" the contents and see your USB stick, and then that will tell you the path name. For example, on my rig it would be /media/donscrap/xorg.conf if I had saved it on my USB stick.

HTH

[mike_cjo]

Re: black screen after boot after changing desktop settings

hi, thanks a lot for your reply.

I have got as far as getting xorg.conf onto my usb stick.

However im now in the console and have plugged in the usb stick an it has mounted it to sdb but when i ls in media all i see is cdrom cdrom0 floppy floppy0.

Any ideas what im doing wrong?

thanks
Mike

[dibl]

Re: black screen after boot after changing desktop settings

OK, my bad -- I'd forgotten what that looks like from the CLI.

Try to cd to /dev/disk/by-label and issue "ls"

Do you see it?

I'm hoping your USB stick has a label. If it doesn't, then you'll need to cd to /dev/disk/by-path and we'll find it there.

[mike_cjo]

Re: black screen after boot after changing desktop settings

doesnt look like it has a label.

ther are 2 usb items listed using by-path. both have huge names. the only difference is one has "part1" at the end.

by-id gives me another list of very long names. the last 2 both have buffalo clipdrive in the name whic ismy usb stick. again the only difference between the 2 names is one has part1 at the end

[mike_cjo]

Re: black screen after boot after changing desktop settings

can i give the stick a label from the live cd?

[dibl]

Re: black screen after boot after changing desktop settings

You can use either the by-path or by-id name, and you want the one ending in part1. Since you're stuck at the CLI, you'll have to just list it, then use the cp command right below, so you can make sure you're entering it correctly.

So, first, in /dev/disk/by-path, do "ls" to list it.

Then immediately do cd /etc/X11

Now, looking at the listed device ID, copy it with a command like this:

sudo cp /dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:1d.7-usb-0:7:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part1/xorg.conf .

Note the period "." at the end, after one space. This is how you tell it to copy the file to the current directory, which is /etc/X11/.


EDIT: drat -- I just tried it -- it says ":Not a directory" -- this may not be the way to copy that file ..

I think we're going to have to mount it in the conventional manner. Can you run

fdisk -lu

and see what the /dev/sdxx number of it is?

[mike_cjo]

Re: black screen after boot after changing desktop settings

when i run fdisk -lu i get

cannot open /dev/sda
cannot open /dev/sdb

when i plug the usb stick in it mentions sdb on the screen

thanks for the help

[dibl]

Re: black screen after boot after changing desktop settings

OK plug in the USB stick, then run

sudo fdisk -lu

Your USB stick should show up at the end of the list. Mine happens to look like this:

 Device Boot   Start    End   Blocks Id System
/dev/sdf1       63  16113194  8056566  b W95 FAT32

Then once we know it, you're going to cd to the /media directory and issue this command:

sudo mkdir usbstick

Then when I know your device's /dev/sdx number, I'll give you the mount command to mount it.

[xykivo]

Re: black screen after boot after changing desktop settings

I suspect you have an issue with the video driver, the effects just brought it up.

Check:
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...2993#msg152993

[mike_cjo]

Re: black screen after boot after changing desktop settings

OK plug in the USB stick, then run

sudo fdisk -lu

Your USB stick should show up at the end of the list. Mine happens to look like this:

  Device Boot   Start     End   Blocks  Id System
/dev/sdf1       63  16113194   8056566  b W95 FAT32

Then once we know it, you're going to cd to the /media directory and issue this command:

sudo mkdir usbstick

Then when I know your device's /dev/sdx number, I'll give you the mount command to mount it.

its /dev/sdb

[dibl]

Re: black screen after boot after changing desktop settings

Cool. Does it actually say sdb1?

I'm assuming it is formatted FAT32.

To mount it, issue this command:

sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdb1 /media/usbstick

To verify that it is mounted, cd to /media and then ls and you should see it there.

[mike_cjo]

Re: black screen after boot after changing desktop settings

got it all mounted and copied across.

rebooted and still the same problem

going to try it again to be sure i did it all right...

[dibl]

Re: black screen after boot after changing desktop settings

BUMMER!

So you now have the same xorg.conf file as exists when you run the Live CD?

Hmmmmmmmm. Clearly something has been changed elsewhere in the system.

[mike_cjo]

Re: black screen after boot after changing desktop settings

BUMMER!

So you now have the same xorg.conf file as exists when you run the Live CD?

Hmmmmmmmm. Clearly something has been changed elsewhere in the system.

Yup, just tried it again and still no joy.

I guess there must be another file that is the problem.

can i reinstall from the live cd but still keep my files and settings?