Ubuntu (13.10) now boots to terminal

Question

Ok, this is going to be a long and odd one...

My system is a Dell XPS 13 ultrabook (just running raw 13.10, not the Sputnik system)

There was an update yesterday that required a reboot so I shut my machine down at the time and started it up this morning and it dumped me to the terminal

At this point my system also has no network interfaces (wifi)

I tried:

ctrl-alt-F7, this gave me nothing
running startx from the cli, this gave me a desktop but no menus, mouse, etc
running unity from the cli, this gave me an error about not being able to find a display
running startx then unity, this gave me menus, but still no mouse or wifi
lspci shows the devices are in the system but 'unclaimed'
uname -r shows the 3.13.0 kernel, isn't 13.10 using 3.11?
changing grub to allow me to see the menu and then using the recovery menu to boot with network enabled - this started to get me somewhere

Now if I boot through recovery mode I get the unity login screen, but I can't login (the screen goes black and the laptop locks up) but now if I ctrl-alt-f1 I can get wifi access.

From some more googling I've found someone suggesting: sudo apt-get install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop

And that's when things started going odd...

The above command listed some unmet dependencies and wouldn't continue, but I'd read that aptitude would be better for sorting these out. So I tried sudo aptitude reinstall ubuntu-desktop and apparently I have a load of packages from Trusty.

The aptitude command showed me a number of ways to resolve the dependencies and I accepted the one that meant rolling back the trusty packages, but it didn't help.

So now I don't know what's going on. Any idea what happened and how I get my system back?

Edit:

/etc/apt/sources.list

# deb cdrom:[Ubuntu 13.04 _Raring Ringtail_ - Release amd64 (20130424)]/ raring main restricted
# See http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes for how to upgrade to
# newer versions of the distribution.
deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy main restricted
deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy main restricted
## Major bug fix updates produced after the final release of the
## distribution.
deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy-updates main restricted
deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy-updates main restricted

## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu
## team. Also, please note that software in universe WILL NOT receive any
## review or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy universe
deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy universe
deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy-updates universe
deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy-updates universe

## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu 
## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to 
## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in 
## multiverse WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu
## security team.
deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy multiverse
deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy multiverse
deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy-updates multiverse
deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy-updates multiverse

## N.B. software from this repository may not have been tested as
## extensively as that contained in the main release, although it includes
## newer versions of some applications which may provide useful features.
## Also, please note that software in backports WILL NOT receive any review
## or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy-backports main restricted universe multiverse

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu saucy-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu saucy-security main restricted
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu saucy-security universe
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu saucy-security universe
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu saucy-security multiverse
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu saucy-security multiverse

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Canonical's
## 'partner' repository.
## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by Canonical and the
## respective vendors as a service to Ubuntu users.
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu raring partner
deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu raring partner

## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by third-party
## developers who want to ship their latest software.
deb http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu saucy main
deb-src http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu saucy main

/etc/apt/sources.list.d/ contains a number of files, from the reading I've done it's just the .list files that have an affect so here they are:

/etc/apt/sources.list.d/anton50489-test-saucy.list

# deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/anton50489/test/ubuntu saucy main
# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/anton50489/test/ubuntu saucy main

/etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list

### THIS FILE IS AUTOMATICALLY CONFIGURED ###
# You may comment out this entry, but any other modifications may be lost.
deb http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main

/etc/apt/sources.list.d/steam.list

deb http://repo.steampowered.com/steam/ precise steam
deb-src http://repo.steampowered.com/steam/ precise steam

/etc/apt/sources.list.d/videolan-stable-daily-saucy.list

# deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/videolan/stable-daily/ubuntu saucy main
# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/videolan/stable-daily/ubuntu saucy main
# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/videolan/stable-daily/ubuntu saucy main

/etc/apt/sources.list.d/webupd8team-y-ppa-manager-saucy.list

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/webupd8team/y-ppa-manager/ubuntu saucy main
# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/webupd8team/y-ppa-manager/ubuntu saucy main

Cheers,

Matt

Add the contents of your /etc/apt/sources.list and the contents of any files in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ to your post using the edit function, please. — drc, Dec 11 '13 at 15:40
OK, those are now in there. There are other files in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ but they're .save or .list~ which I believe are backups — user224416, Dec 11 '13 at 17:53

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 11 '13 at 17:55

0

Open virtual console(ctrl+alt+F1) and run the below commands,

sudo apt-get -f install
sudo apt-get install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop
sudo apt-get install unity

Then reboot you pc.

answered Dec 11 '13 at 17:55

Avinash Raj

78,556

I'd tried something similar, with sudo apt-get install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop which didn't work (showed all the dependency issues, which I then tried to resolve with aptitude) but I didn't then try to install unity. I've tried these again (with unity this time), and still no joy. – user224416 Dec 11 '13 at 18:57
first try sudo apt-get -f install ,it will resolve all dependency problems. – Avinash Raj Dec 11 '13 at 18:58
I did this time around, but I'd already resolved them with aptitude so there aren't any now. I did it this time again anyway, but it didn't find any. – user224416 Dec 11 '13 at 19:04
after trying all the above commands and restared your pc,what shows on the screen? – Avinash Raj Dec 11 '13 at 19:05
It just boots to a CLI login terminal rather than the GUI. And on that terminal it seems to have not loaded and drivers for hardware (no wifi, the keyboard layout is wrong, etc) – user224416 Dec 11 '13 at 19:09
give startx command. – Avinash Raj Dec 11 '13 at 19:10
It hangs for a bit and prints somethign to the terminal about xauth: timeout and then slowly fills the terminal with No protocol specified – user224416 Dec 11 '13 at 19:14
login into virtual console and then run this command sudo service lightdm restart – Avinash Raj Dec 11 '13 at 19:16
The screen goes black, I'm pushed to the GUI 'terminal' under ctrl+alt+f7, and I can jump back to ctrl+alt+f1 – user224416 Dec 11 '13 at 19:19
did you update any graphics drivers? – Avinash Raj Dec 11 '13 at 19:27
I don't know, I just accepted the update without really looking at what was being updated – user224416 Dec 11 '13 at 19:28
run this command on console sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf then sudo service lightdm restart – Avinash Raj Dec 11 '13 at 19:30
I just looked at dmesg and I have this line: [41.818546] [drm:intel_dp_start_link_train] *ERROR* too many full retries, give up – user224416 Dec 11 '13 at 19:31
I don't appear to have an /etc/X11/xorg.conf – user224416 Dec 11 '13 at 19:34
try this http://askubuntu.com/a/162078 – Avinash Raj Dec 11 '13 at 19:37
It doesn't freeze, as such, it has Intel graphics and grub seems fine, so it's looking like re-installing is the next on that list. Thanks for taking the time to help though :-) – user224416 Dec 11 '13 at 19:46

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 11 '13 at 18:35

0

sudo apt-get install -y syslinux-themes-debian-wheezy
sudo apt-get remove --purge ubuntu-desktop  #this flush your cache/sources list
sudo apt-get remove --purge unity

and finally

sudo apt-get install -y ubuntu-desktop

edited Dec 11 '13 at 18:35

Eric Carvalho

54,385

answered Dec 11 '13 at 17:58

Faron

1,398
10
14

1

Could you explain what this do? – Braiam Dec 11 '13 at 18:30
Thanks, I tried this but it hasn't made a difference. – user224416 Dec 11 '13 at 19:05

Ubuntu (13.10) now boots to terminal

2 Answers2