system hangs at initializing

[nessus]

after installed kubuntu, i have installed nvidia driver and all the updates. it was just working fine for a few hours, and then after i rebooted the system, it hangs right after all those "blah blan ................. OK" messages.

so basically all those "OK" messages are gone, screen only has the :kubuntu" logo on with an empty "prograss bar". it just hangs at here.

i waited for about 20min, still nothing happens. buy when i hit "ctrl+alt+del", it still shuts down properly. what i mean is that it still displays those "stoping devices..." messages, and then it restarts, and then hangs at logo again.

i am just wondering if there is a safemode in kubuntu that i can activate at initializing stage, like windows does. so i can at least get into the system and try to figure out what the problem is?

[askrieger]

Re: system hangs at initializing

Yes, it's called recovery mode. It is the second line in the Grub boot menu. That information may do you no good, however, because by default Kubuntu keeps the boot menu hidden so that in order to see it, you have to hit the Esc key and the down arrow within a 3 second interval after your machine POST checks and the start of the regular boot process.

However, when the computer hangs in the way you describe, the problem is almost always the xserver. So all you have to do is to run the machine from a conslole, until you can repair the xserver. So, when the machine hangs, type Ctl-Alt-F1 (or any F key except F7). Then, from the full screen black and white console, backup your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file (sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak), and then run the command "sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg". At the worst you should be able to go back to the "nv" driver.

While you're at it, you can edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst file to comment out the "hiddenmenu" line and to change the timeout to 10 seconds. I find that 10 seconds is a good compromise between the need for lightning reflexes and boredom.