10.04 upgrade has killed Ubuntu

[mr_si]

So I was a 9.10 user, but after some badgering by the update manager I allowed the OS to update itself. Now on reboot I've lost my GUI. I get a command prompt login. Doing a safe boot and choosing 'basic graphics' I get boot messages to the effect that there are no screens configured. Any idea how I can recover my desktop? It's a P4 on an intel mobo with NVidia AGP gfx.

[davidmohammed]

first suggestion - edit your grub on boot and add nomodeset

(press shift to display grub, e to edit and add nomodeset before quiet splash)

if you remove quiet splash it might display more info on what possible has gone wrong.

[kansasnoob]

If you can run any Ubuntu Live CD it might be helpful to see the specific graphics card info:


lspci | grep VGA

Since you mention nvidia this pops to mind:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LucidLynx/ReleaseNotes#Incompatibility%20with%20nVidia%20ups tream%20driver%20installer


Incompatibility with nVidia upstream driver installer

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS includes improved integration for nVidia binary driver packages. Unfortunately, this comes at the expense of compatibility with the installer provided upstream on the nVidia website. Users who wish to use the nVidia binary video drivers with 10.04 LTS should install them using the Ubuntu packages, as made available under System -> Administration -> Hardware Drivers.

So, if you can boot into recovery mode, after it runs you'll see several options. Among them is failsafeX, selecting that may get you to the desktop so you can install the driver.

[kansasnoob]

after some badgering by the update manager

I know it's not helpful now but in the future just go to System > Administration > Software Sources and under the Updates tab at the bottom you'll see Release upgrade, just toggle that to "never".

[mr_si]

Thanks for the replies.

I've attached the xorg.failsafe.log, also the results.txt from a boot log script I saw recommended in another post.

I tried uninstalling the nvidia drivers (sudo apt-get remove nvidia-gfx) but got a package not available or somesuch. What's the name of the nvidia driver package again?

Also I thought about just wiping the drive and starting again but the installer is only showing me the XP disk. Grrr.