Help - lost my desktop can't do much

[dougalkerr]

I am still getting to grips with Ubuntu 8.10 and now I have lost my desktop. After login I get the plain Ubuntu background colour and a terminal window and that's it. I don't know enough about command line workings to get myself out of this so any help is greatly appreciated. Here is the contents of my xorg.conf file (hand typed as I am now in Windows Vista) and the file looks starngely vacant of any kind of drivers. I should have something about my Radeon graphics card I would think...

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Default Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

[XanTrax]

I am still getting to grips with Ubuntu 8.10 and now I have lost my desktop. After login I get the plain Ubuntu background colour and a terminal window and that's it. I don't know enough about command line workings to get myself out of this so any help is greatly appreciated. Here is the contents of my xorg.conf file (hand typed as I am now in Windows Vista) and the file looks starngely vacant of any kind of drivers. I should have something about my Radeon graphics card I would think...

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Default Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
EndSection


You can run



sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg


That will reconfigure your xorg.conf file and put a default one that works.

Also, have you uninstalled anything lately via command line using remove or purge?

I.E:

sudo apt-get purge <pkg_name>

or

sudo apt-get remove <pkg_name>

Because if so, the package you removed could have removed the ubuntu-desktop package( see: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=910636 )

In that case, do:



sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop


Assuming you're using gnome ubuntu desktop

[dougalkerr]

XanTrax - thanks for the advice and tips but, neither solutions have worked. Looks like I have lost something big time on re-installation. At the moment unfortunately this means using Windows full time till I have free time to try yet another re-install of the operating system. I am sure that there were no errors the last time I installed.
Thanks again...

[shark1997]

You can try restarting the X server

Code:
startx

[XanTrax]

Alright. When you get the chance please type



sudo su -
lshw -C sound


and please post the output of that command.