Compiz has Frozen my 9.10

[Ichido]

I installed (Synaptic) Compiz and tried a few 3-D desktop teaks and it froze everything.
Now my system boots to desktop and then everything Freezes.
NO touch-pad, mouse or keyboard function.
Tried to boot an earlier version in the GRUB, still nothing.
Tried a Install of 9.10 in the same /sda3 as the frozen one and still no change.
Cannot start a terminal.
Cannot start, remove or change anything.
I'm using my Backup 9.04 on my /sda1 to get here.
Is there a way to get into the Frozen O.S. and remove Compiz?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[srix]

If you're able to boot the system from /sda1, you could mount the 9.10 partition, remove the compiz configuration files and restart. That should get you to the default compiz configuration (which I assume was working before you tried the 3D tweaks).

Once you're into /sda1, create a temporary directory somewhere (e.g. /tmp/910).
$ sudo mount /dev/sda3 /tmp/910
$ cd /tmp/910/<your home folder>/.gconf/apps
$ rm -r compiz
$ cd
$ sudo umount /tmp/910

Reboot into 9.10. Hopefully that should restore the default compiz settings.

[Ichido]

If you're able to boot the system from /sda1, you could mount the 9.10 partition, remove the compiz configuration files and restart. That should get you to the default compiz configuration (which I assume was working before you tried the 3D tweaks).

Once you're into /sda1, create a temporary directory somewhere (e.g. /tmp/910).
$ sudo mount /dev/sda3 /tmp/910
$ cd /tmp/910/<your home folder>/.gconf/apps
$ rm -r compiz
$ cd
$ sudo umount /tmp/910

Reboot into 9.10. Hopefully that should restore the default compiz settings.

Every terminal command above produces "command not found".

[srix]

That's strange! Are you able to run any other command at all in the terminal? ls, for instance?
(Also, I hope you didn't include the "$ " in the commands you typed? You only need to type the stuff after the "$ " on each of the lines).

[Ichido]

That's strange! Are you able to run any other command at all in the terminal? ls, for instance?
(Also, I hope you didn't include the "$ " in the commands you typed? You only need to type the stuff after the "$ " on each of the lines).


"cd /tmp/910/<your home folder>/.gconf/apps"

How/Why do I "move/copy" my /'home' folder into /tmp/910/ ??

Also: "sudo mount /dev/sda3 /tmp/910" causes Terminal to "spin it's wheels"?

[srix]

"cd /tmp/910/<your home folder>/.gconf/apps"

How/Why do I "move/copy" my /'home' folder into /tmp/910/ ??

Also: "sudo mount /dev/sda3 /tmp/910" causes Terminal to "spin it's wheels"?

That's a "change directory" command - to change your current working directory to your home folder on the bad installation, which is temporarily mounted under "/tmp/910".

Once you boot into the good 9.04 installation, could you run the "mount" command in a terminal and post the output here? Also the output of the "sudo fdisk -l" command.

[Ichido]

"sudo mount /dev/sda3 /tmp/910" = "command not found"

"sudo fdisk -l" =

"Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00060f2d

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 6997 56203371 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 13996 14593 4803435 5 Extended
/dev/sda3 6998 13995 56211435 83 Linux
/dev/sda5 13996 14593 4803403+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order"


Thanks for your help so far.

[srix]

I can't imagine why the mount command should fail.

Another alternative is to boot into the 9.10 (sda3) system in single user mode. To do that, while in the grub menu, select the 9.10 boot image and type 'e' to edit the boot command. It should show you the entire command used for booting (something like "kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic root=UUID=6f2f6599-29c9-44d1-9a8c-b504f1b57ba0 ro quiet splash"). Move using the arrow keys to the end of this line and add the word "single" (without quotes), and press enter to boot.
This should get you into a shell prompt, from where you can cd into your home directory and remove the ".gconf/apps/compiz" directory as mentioned in the earlier posts.