TTY 1 login should be addressed completely in an understandable way.

[woodsmoke]

This is a post to encourage some discussion among the community because I do not have an answer.

Every so often I bork a system, and sometimes by not doing anything untoward, such as what happened when I tried to open an image, as discussed in another thread.

This seems to be a problem with both experienced users and new people(I hate "newbie") to Linux.

The internet is littered with probably thousands of posts of people desperate over TTY 1 and there are few replies that seem to work. I have noticed of late that there are TTY 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,7 and who knows what else.

My rather STUPID way of getting out of it is to....

a) remove the internet plug.
b) go through the repair mode several times....and maybe it works.
c) SOMEtimes I get a nice blue box that is kind of reminiscent of Windows....that says....start normally!
d) Sometimes I get the distro back and sometimes not....

And that is precisely why I do not keep any data on the computer itself and why I do a remastersys when I get the OS to my liking or make significant changes. 8)

So.......I would like to very HUMBLY ask that someone, or a GROUP of someones!!! would very simply state in terms that ANYbody could understand.... what TTY -1 is... why people get dropped to it, and a simple step by step solution ....

Or.....if not that then the "group" could work together to address the situation and come up with something

I think.........that thousands of people would be stopping in here for the solution and then STAY because ........Kubuntu forums would have the only understandable solution on the net!

just a suggestion.

woodsmoke

[Snowhog]

Re: TTY 1 login should be addressed completely in an understandable way.

Class is in session.

The TTY demystified
The tty Layer

Likely way more than you wanted in the way of an answer, but you asked.

[woodsmoke]

Re: TTY 1 login should be addressed completely in an understandable way.

Thanks Snowhog for the great history!

Now how about someone giving a very pithy method of what a person should do when one encounters the dreaded black screen with jaggy fonts and the last line of text is..TTY-1 and login but when you login nothing happens?

woodsmoke

[Ole Juul]

Re: TTY 1 login should be addressed completely in an understandable way.

Now how about someone giving a very pithy method of what a person should do when one encounters the dreaded black screen with jaggy fonts and the last line of text is..TTY-1 and login but when you login nothing happens?

What exactly is the problem that you encountered? I've read through your post 3 times and I'm starting to feel stupid(er) because I haven't picked up on it yet.

I love the terminals. You can do different things in each one just like you were typing on a whole stack of computers. What's to not like about that? I must admit though that you are right about the fonts, I do prefer the very elegant and easy to read xterm that Kubuntu has and I have it set with green text on a black background with prompts in red (just like my DOS machine) and it is very comfortable and relaxing for me. So, yeah, on my main machine which is running Kubuntu, I actually don't bother using the TTYs except the one which Xorg uses for the WM, and have a stack of xterms on one of my desktops instead. It's not a lot different except for the improved fonts of course.

[woodsmoke]

Re: TTY 1 login should be addressed completely in an understandable way.

ummmm nobody actually gave an "answer" as to what the person to DO when he or she encounters TTY(whatever number) and is presented with:

login: username


In other words what does one DO to get the OS back?

I've tried "startx" and that sometimes works and most times not.

So...again...........

What does one type with one's little fingers on the keyboard and which commands does one utter, with one's fingers on the keyboard, NOT with a hammer while hitting the machine! to get the OS back?

In, order, possibly with explanation please.

woodsmoke

[Snowhog]

Re: TTY 1 login should be addressed completely in an understandable way.

You first try to get back to the X environment (your desktop - assuming that it was running before you found yourself at the tty) by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F7. If that works, there you are. If it does not, then try Ctrl+Alt+F8. If that works, there you are. If neither work, then X was never started, and possibly, other processes as well. In this case, you are best advised to just reboot by typing:

sudo shutdown -r now

[Ole Juul]

Re: TTY 1 login should be addressed completely in an understandable way.

ummmm nobody actually gave an "answer" as to what the person to DO when he or she encounters TTY(whatever number) and is presented with:

login: username


In other words what does one DO to get the OS back?

Ah, now I get it! We're talking about a definition of OS. Mine is different. To me when one encouters TTY, then the OS is running. Put in a username and you're in. End of story.

However, running a GUI from there, if there isn't a functional one to be had, is indeed a good question.

I've had that happen (in other OSs as well) and if Snowhog's suggestion above doesn't work, then I look at the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. If I suspect a problem there, then I make a backup of the file and write another one with "Xorg -configure". At that point there should be a working "X" with "startx", and the chosen GUI should work unless you need to install one. If the problem from here turns out to be a broken desktop system such as fundamental KDE configuration, then that is way over my head. I think that would require specific information for specific situations and it would be hard to generalize.

[doctordruidphd]

Re: TTY 1 login should be addressed completely in an understandable way.

Losing your normal graphical environment can be very frustrating, if not downright frightening. Unfortunately, there are so many possible causes that no single solution can be provided. I agree with the original post, though, that some sort of checklist procedure to go through would be reassuring, might be helpful, and in the end result in fewer "HELP ME NOW!!" type postings on the forums.

Since I do a lot of playing with testing versions of the distribution, I have gotten a little more accustomed to the problem, and I do have something of a procedure.

1. Try to stop and restart x:
log in to the console.
sudo service kdm stop
sudo service kdm start

2. If that doesn't work, then
less /var/log/Xorg.0.log

which may list one or more reasons for the server not starting up.
Then it becomes an issue of resolving whatever the problem is.

3. If X is actually starting, but kde is not, it's often an issue with the plasma desktop, and more often than not a plasmoid that is crashing. In which case, moving the plasma* files in ~/.kde/share/config out of the way (by which I mean, moving them to a temporary directory) may allow kde to start, albeit unconfigured. You can then move the plasma files back, one by one, till you find the offender.

4. There may also be a problem with other applications interfering, such as taking over the cpu.
The top command may reveal one or more applications running at a high cpu. These can then be killed, and starting kde over can be tried.

In the end, going through all of these may not be something a new user can do on his/her own, as the Xsystem, video drivers, desktop and kernel all have too many possible failure points for a single, linear procedure to be given.

[woodsmoke]

Re: TTY 1 login should be addressed completely in an understandable way.

The above are EXCELLENT SUGGESTIONS!!!

REALLY.....

I will try them each in turn, because the distro is still sitting on the hd like an english walnut meat in the shell, merely needing SOMEthing to open the paper shell....

TO OTHER INTERESTED READERS.........

YOU.......may have THE suggestion for the ONE person who has a situation not addressed by the above...

Let YOUR suggestions become part of the DEFINITIVE LIST of how to solve this very VEXING problem so that when someone types "TTY1" into Google.......they end up HERE!!!

PLEASE.....post YOUR particular solution.......PLEASE!!!

woodsmoke

[toad]

Re: TTY 1 login should be addressed completely in an understandable way.

doctordruidphd hit the nail on the head, try restarting kdm and if that fails check the logs 'cos something is borked and it could by anything...

BTW, does the ncurses package of envy still exist? As I'm not running Kubuntu I don't know, but that would also be a good way of getting X back.

And while you are sweating on tty1 you can surf the internet without X on tty2-6 (links or lynx), use ncurses to browse your file system (midnight commander, ranger - the latter might be exclusive to the Arch community) or manage your packages conveniently (Christ, what is it called? aptitude, that is it ), manage your music library (mpd), read/write emails (mutt), read RSS feeds (newsbeuter), etc., etc.

Actually, the only real reason why one needs X is to watch youtube and veetle - mplayer even gives a reasonable representation of mpegs on the command line

[woodsmoke]

Re: TTY 1 login should be addressed completely in an understandable way.

Hi guys!
Well I tried the suggestions and got........um.......nothing! lol

I did get the same messages that I got before and I "think" these are the salient messages:

the following filed to close and were closed:

/tmp/fileQiHjg

And:

keyboard initilizesface failed

I have seen these consistently.

woodsmoke

[toad]

Re: TTY 1 login should be addressed completely in an understandable way.

Argh, failed to close a tmp file? My initial reaction would be to remove it manually. However, this appears to be rather difficult without a keyboard :P

You obviously do not have a "standard" problem there, woodsmoke. Been putting your box in the smoker together with the meat?

Next time it happens stick the log as advised by doctordruidphd on pastebin.

[sithlord48]

Re: TTY 1 login should be addressed completely in an understandable way.

if you have a usb keyboard plug it in and try to use it. i just had a system that went down durring updates, after that it would sometimes boot other times hang , but in the end i only had to run "sudo apt-get install -f " to fix the packages, maybe this will work for you. it was difficult cause when it booted the keyboard (its a laptop) didn't work , but a usb one did.

[woodsmoke]

Re: TTY 1 login should be addressed completely in an understandable way.

lol
I always eiher have NO problems or i sometimes have this one.

I hadn't thought of the smoker....I was using cherrywood on some trout....hmmm

as to the USB keyboard, i'll try that.

woodsmoke