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 Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 10:16 pm
Okay, so here's a fun problem that I'm stumped on. I've got a computer that boots either in Windows XP or Kubuntu 8.04 that I had a friend at school set up (mainly because I need Windows in tact just in case I run into problems, which I did...)
The problem is that I'm not sure what I did but one day it decided while I was fooling around with some settings I found to change the appearance to go blank, and it didn't go back for a couple minutes (could've sworn it usually had a 15 second thing to go back in case they caused that problem, but oh well)
Anyway, now when I boot in Kubuntu and get to the Login Screen, it does fine, but then when I log in I've got a black screen.
I'd display a screen shot, but it's like just plain Black, there's nothing there, not to mention even if there were something I doubt I could find somewhere to put the screen shot to save it anyway.
I talked to said friend who set it up and he thinks it's got something to do with some X11 thingy and something's broken with the user, I'm not sure if that's accurate because I wasn't about to drag my tower back to school again to have it checked, but I'd really like the user to just load right so I can get back to experimenting (which, yes, will probably involve me making a similar mistake in about a week's time from whenever it works again, but you know, Gates was smoking Powerpoint Templates when he made Vista, iMacs drive me crazy, XP won't have support forever, you know...gotta learn this some time soon, besides, it looks like it'll be fun once I have some clue what I'm doing)
Oh, it'd be nice if I had some detailed instructions if anyone knows how to fix this, I'm really not that good with computers (I tend to know more than most people I know, but that's not saying much about what I actually know, if you know what I mean)
Hopefully this is the right general area for this. sweatdrop
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Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 6:42 pm
Hello G. Warrior107, reading your post a couple of things do come in mind all of which could have been avoided with a simple back-up. In Linux you can easily make a back up of a file by making a copy of it and adding a "~" to the end of it so:
somefile.odt when backed up will become somefile.odt~
Then to restore that back up just remove the "~" and overwrite the existing version. This is very helpful wink
Now to your problem at hand...
Yes it sounds like you messed with your configuration for X11 (the graphic system used by most modern distros). I don't know if Kubuntu stores the configuration file in the same directory as openSUSE but mine is
/etc/X11/xorg.conf
Ok to fix your problem when you boot your computer into Kubuntu and you get to the Login screen go to one of the Virtual Terminals, to do this press the following keys:
Ctrl + Alt + Fn (Where in is a number 1-6 it is your pick)
That should take you to a command line screen asking for a user name, if Kubuntu allows you to log in as Root then use the following log in:
Username: root
Password: the root password you picked during install
If that does not work then you will need to log in with your account then get "Super User" privileges
Username: yourusername
Password: yourpassword
Once logged in to gain "Super User" privileges you need to use one of the following commands
su or sudo [1]
Once "Super User" privileges have been gained you need to "cd" to /etc/X11 by using the following cd /etc/X11 and delete the file named xorg.conf [2] rm xorg.conf
Then restart your computer, to do so you can pick from one of the following root commands:
restart, reboot, or init 6 [3]
This will cause Kubuntu to make a new working configuration for X11 and should fix your problem.
Notes:
[1] su (super user); su gives you root privileges until you ether "exit" super user or "logout" of your account
sudo (super user do): sudo temporarily gives you root privileges for 15 minutes, and also requires you to type sudo in front of every command that requires such high privileges.
[2] Deleting xorg.conf file is an unneeded extreme, all that is really required is that you add "~" to the end of is so that there is no longer a file named "xorg.conf" for X11 to read from. To do this with out copying it is by
mv xorg.conf xorg.conf~
[3] Some distros differ in system run levels and init 6 may not be the correct run level for Kubuntu to restart the machine.
If that doesn't work...
Then it is not a problem with X11 and is a problem with your user and your desktop, KDE, this is a simple problem to fix a lot like the one above but with some changes:
First change: you just need to log in as yourself in the virtual terminal no need to drag Root into this
Second change: Instead of dealing with /etc/X11/xorg.conf we are dealing with ~/.kde (that is /home/(yourusername)/.kde) ether rename that or delete that and restart your computer and see if that works.
If you have any question, ask them and more details can be provided this is kind of a lot in a very short time I know.
To prevent anything like this from happening you can "back-up" anything you want to play with.
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Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 12:06 pm
Okay, so I tried the first one, it didn't work, and the second one didn't work either. The only difference is that now I can actually see the cursor on the screen whereas I think before I couldn't. Is there some second-most-likely cause for this, or am I better off trying to figure out how to re-install or something? And if I'm re-installing, is there some way to make sure that I install in the Linux Partition without harming my copy of Windows? Every time I try at that I can't tell which things are what so I generally get nowhere trying to do that.
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Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 6:35 pm
Well there could be several reasons why those where just what I knew how to fix. If you do want to reinstall and don't want to bring your computer to school you can see if your friend will come to your house and will walk you through the installation process. Another thing you can do is see if there is a LUG (Linux User Group) near you and ask if someone there will help you. Because you already have Linux installed along side of your windows you can easily reinstall Linux with out bothering windows or reinstall windows with out bothering Linux just avoid the NTFS partition with the partitioner.
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