Friday, March 1, 2013

X11 not working with UBUNTU

As it happens I ended up deleting my /tmp file. after a reboot the machine failed to get to the graphical display (x11). After some research here is what fixed it:

(move to a shell by ctr+alt+F1 or F2 or ... F6)

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

if that doesn't work you can try something a bit more drastic

sudo apt-get install -- reinstall xserver-xorg

once you get that done try starting the graphic mode:
startx


this made the cursor visible and the wallpaper. But nothing else. The solution was

sudo service gdm restart

This will get you to the password page. You might be surprised that the machine didn't recognize my passport, until you know that /tmp is the place these things are communicated to the system and it has to be writable by everyone:

chmod 777 /tmp

once that is fixed  you should try startx the previous sudo serve command it will work.



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