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This will be a rather long question. I did two upgrades to my laptop: I increased the system RAM to the maximum and I replaced the 2 TB hard drive with a 4 TB SSD. The system was 22.04 and the current system is 22.04, but kept current (previously using Software Updater GUI application). I first did the trial to verify that the hardware was indeed working and then did the full install with the proprietary driver box "checked". I then rebooted; everything worked but neither my previous /home directories nor my /opt nor /usr/local had my personal files and selections. I did NOT touch any of the systems file directories installed by the Ubuntu installer GUI, and thus ended up with a single 4 TB partition with an ext4 file system (I prefer partitions and XFS rather than ext4). After following instructions for how to blacklist the nouveau open driver for the nvidia proprietary driver, I was able to get a Xwindows GUI started. I did this by booting, going to a scrolling terminal screen (say on F3), logging into a scrolling screen, startx, and the standard Ubuntu Gnome GUI starts -- not MATE. Note that xinit fails but startx does work. Clearly, a configuration file is wrong. Note that on the system default screen, ctrl-alt-F1, all I see is a white outlined X on a black screen (the pointing device does move the X), no window manager. As I am using MATE, I need marco. Clearly, one or more configuration files are not correct. Any suggestions? Note that all of the relevant packages, such as the Nvidia proprietary packages and the MATE packages were installed from Ubuntu, not built by myself nor manually downloaded and installed.

Yasha Karant
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    You mention 22.04 & MATE many times, but MATE is a desktop, 22.04 is the 2022-April release of Ubuntu (and flavors which include Ubuntu-MATE) but you didn't specifically say you're asking about Ubuntu-MATE 22.04 LTS. It's best if your explicit. Did you change DM? as you don't appear to be using the greeter to login? and maybe that's what you actually want (ie. a GUI login which occurs before MATE is started; in fact it's what starts your desktop be it MATE/GNOME or LXQt for me using Lubuntu) – guiverc Sep 20 '22 at 02:56
  • I am running "stock" 22.04LTS not MATE version. I installed "all" of the MATE packages using apt and installed lightdm as the display manager. I cannot get marco to work as the window manager, nor can I get Xwindows (with the usual login person choices and then the choice of window managers through the "gear" on the side) to work. startx does work, but only starts gnome (that does work under lightdm, not just gdm). I am using the Ubuntu proprietary nvidia driver (the Nvidia Xserver GUI settings displays and "works") but had to manually disable nouveau for the proprietary to work. – Yasha Karant Sep 20 '22 at 06:09
  • My guess is you didn't install of what the MATE desktop requires, but you've not said how you installed it. My system was a Ubuntu Desktop install, on which I installed other desktops including ubuntu-mate-desktop (and more) and everything works... but the packages needed can vary per release if you're not installing everything (why I opted to use ubuntu-mate-desktop then remove packages..). Did you add task-mate-desktop or something else? It may help if you're specific. Also additional details should be added to your question, not provided via comment. – guiverc Sep 20 '22 at 06:15
  • Do you want the FAILED from the logs? How do I post these given the limits on message size? The issue is not just MATE. The GUI login does not appear. I always boot showing the boot messages (looking for red FAIL) and then the GUI login showed up, allowing one to login and then the appropriate window manager appears -- but no longer. I manually go the a screen, a scrolling login appears, I login, and then startx. Note that xinit does not work. – Yasha Karant Sep 20 '22 at 15:40

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Evidently, some package configuration file had an issue. I did as root

apt purge gdm3

apt install gnome gnome-core ubuntu-desktop ubuntu-desktop-minimal gdm3

and now a normal graphical login appears. Note that the additional packages listed on the apt install line were the packages that the purge of gdm3 listed as were going to be removed along with gdm3. Although Gnome was installed, in fact MATE is offered as a "gear choice" before password but after user is selected from the GUI login, and MATE works fine.

If any reader of this question can explain which systems files were "corrected" by the above commands, such clarifications would be appreciated to aid in the understanding of what actually happens during the Ubuntu startup of both a GUI login and a GUI window display manager (such as marco for MATE).

Yasha Karant
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  • exactly which config file was broken is anyone's guess, but most likely purging and reinstalling packages has corrected a broken config file somewhere. In a lot of cases that's the easiest/most effective way to correct a broken config file if you don't know which one is broken. – Esther Sep 21 '22 at 17:16
  • Although in practice what you suggest, and what actually "worked", is done by many IT professionals, it is "bad" software engineering and systems computer science, both in theory and in practice. I teach understanding of the internals of a system unless the system is closed source proprietary (e.g., Microsoft), in which case only "magic" incantations and rote operations work because there is no reveal of what really is happening. A conventional (not neurosynaptic, etc.) computer is a state machine, albeit a rather complicated one, but still a state machine, and can be understood. – Yasha Karant Sep 22 '22 at 16:14
  • It is possible to look through the config files and determine exactly what is wrong with which one, or to troubleshoot so completely that you can figure out what's wrong without seeing the problem in the file (from error messages for example, assuming they are sufficient), and then go fix it manually. However once the config file has been fixed, absent a sufficient amount of prior troubleshooting with complete logs, there isn't a way to know which file was previously broken but now fixed. And in general, it is much quicker to reinstall a package than to troubleshoot a broken config file. – Esther Sep 22 '22 at 16:18
  • From a practical "get it working now" point of view, what you state is correct, similar to the full reinstall upon the Microsoft "blue screen of death" (in which a terminal rescue startup of a minimal system combined with text based configuration files simply does not exist in any workstation version). However, the approach of "fixit" is one of the primary reasons that computer software systems are fragile and unreliable (using software engineering concepts). Had there been access to real documentation, including the various graphs and formalities of, say, UML, there might be a choice. – Yasha Karant Sep 22 '22 at 16:24
  • you can Google for the Ubuntu graphical startup process, but at some point it depends heavily on which graphics server/greeter/DE/etc you use. My point was that many files were "corrected," and figuring out which was problematic after the fact is pretty much impossible. If you left it broken until you could figure out the problem, you may have found it, but now you have no chance. You also give no error messages: you say "xinit fails" but with what errors? did you check logs? etc – Esther Sep 22 '22 at 16:29
  • apparently startx is a "frontend" to xinit, so startx working while xinit doesn't is very strange. Regardless, the config files in question are the .xinitrc in your home folder or the default one in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc. What exactly was wrong with them (if anything) is impossible to know now. – Esther Sep 22 '22 at 16:33
  • Instead of complaining about lack of UML, try reading the man pages. They contain quite a lot of information. also try google, where you might find things like this: https://askubuntu.com/questions/518454/what-does-startx-command-do – Esther Sep 22 '22 at 16:40