PC now starts with server login instead of Unity desktop

[clay7]

I recently made a few changes to my PC (Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Desktop):

• Update and upgrade
• Installed openssh-server so I could check on the computer remotely
• Installed fail2ban

Now when I start the computer, I get the server login screen instead of the Unity desktop. If I run startx it just locks up the computer.

How can I get the desktop to show up again?

[daslinkard]

What happens when you do the following...
1. log out of your session
2. log back in and select the icon next to your user name.
3. Select unity
4. Log in

This should log you back into Unity. Try to reboot and see if it remains as your default log in (Unity that is).

[clay7]

If I log out and log back in, I'm in the same situation.

When my computer turns on, it shows the purple Ubuntu screen and then goes straight to the server-style logon (black screen, white text only, no graphics).

[daslinkard]

So there is no icon next to your username at log in for you to change the theme you are logging into?

[clay7]

Thanks - no, there are no graphics at all. It looks exactly like the Ubuntu server login screen.

I've tried editing the GRUB file with "nomodeset" instead of "quiet splash" but that didn't work.

My guess is that this is related to the ATI drivers of the graphics card. Google shows several other instances of this problem. Unfortunately, so far I haven't found the solution...

[daslinkard]

What about trying

sudo apt-get install gnome

Then once this is completed....reboot your system and try the log in again.

[clay7]

I did

sudo apt-get install gnome-panel

and rebooted, and it still went back to the server login screen. I tried "startx" and it again locked up the system.

[HiImTye]

try ctrl+alt+f7 to switch to tty7 (if it doesn't say tty7). if that doesn't produce your login screen then I'd check your syslog and kern.log to see what errors it's giving you

less /var/log/syslog
less /var/log/kern.log

edit: I'd also check to see if you have a login manager running

ps -e | grep dm$

it should list either lightdm or gdm if you have one up

[clay7]

ps -e | grep dm$

returned nothing. Also, tried ctrl+alt+f7 but this just froze the computer.

/var/log/kern.log showed some interesting things:

fb0: VESA VGA frame buffer device
init: gdm main process (963) killed by TERM signal
fglrx_pci 0000:03:00:0: irq 42 for MSI/MSI-X
[fglrx] Firegl kernel thread PID: 1076
[fglrx] Firegl kernel thread PID: 1077
[fglrx] Firegl kernel thread PID: 1078
[fglrx]IRQ 42 Enabled
[fglrx] Gart USWC size:628 M.
[fglrx] Gart cacheable size:247 M.
[fglrx] Reserved FB block: Shared offset:0, size:1000000
[fglrx] Reserved FB block: Unshared offset:fb07000, size:1f9000
[fglrx] Reserved FB block: Unshared offset:3fff4000, size:c000
[fglrx] IRQ 42 Disabled
init: lightdm main process (964) terminated with status 1
ip_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team
init: plymouth-stop pre-start process (1140) terminated with status 1
{some lan settings}
init: failsafe-x main process (1088) terminated with status 1

I have both lightdm and gdm installed but it looks like neither is running. I've tried

sudo apt-get -f install

and that did nothing either.

Any thoughts?

[HiImTye]

you have both installed simultaneously? I'd try these

sudo /etc/init.d/lightdm stop
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop
sudo /etc/init.d/lightdm start

if that fails then

sudo less /var/log/lightdm/lightdm.log