Too many boot options/No gui at startup

[Pithikos]

Hi! I had bought a new wifi card(rtl8185) and spent 2 days trying to make it work. I finally got it working but now I am experiencing some other problems.


First of all I get two many bootup options. Before I used to have 4 generic options(2 different kernels with each of them having their own recovery), memtest and then my win7. Now I am having those plus 4 server options and 4 preemp(no clue what this is) options. I am suspicious that this has to do with some command I ran: sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-wireless-*
I got some notify at that point about broken packages. I followed the instructions given and made the messages dissapear(I don't remember excactly what I did).
Then when I saw that it shows all those bootup options I tryied sudo apt-get remove linux-backports-modules-wireless-server and sudo apt-get remove linux-backports-modules-wireless-preemp but that didn't solve anything.

My second problem is that in startup now even if I choose the generic option it doesn't load the gui but just gives me the command prompt so I have to run startx each time.


I am kind of a noobie in linux but would like to learn so please give me some guidance. I thought of reinstalling a fresh copy of Ubuntu-desktop but it's just too hard work. So I would be grateful if you could tip me on how fixing the problem as it is. I run Ubuntu 10.04 x64

Cheers! :)

[iponeverything]

First make a note of kernels that you no longer want in your boot menu.

Next find with this command:


dpkg -l |grep kernel

This will list all of the installed kernels. Only remove the ones that you no longer want. Say for example one of kernels is linux-image-2.6.27-11-generic remove it with -- find associated packages with:


dpkg -l |grep 2.6.27-11

which will give:


ii linux-headers-2.6.27-11 2.6.27-11.31 Header files related to Linux kernel version
ii linux-headers-2.6.27-11-generic 2.6.27-11.31 Linux kernel headers for version 2.6.27 on x
ii linux-image-2.6.27-11-generic 2.6.27-11.31 Linux kernel image for version 2.6.27 on x86
ii linux-restricted-modules-2.6.27-11-generic 2.6.27-11.16 Non-free Linux kernel modules for version 2.

remove them with:


sudo dpkg -e linux-image-2.6.27-11-generic linux-headers-2.6.27-11 linux-headers-2.6.27-11-generic linux-restricted-modules-2.6.27-11-generic

To have it start into X


sudo runlevel --set=3


lastly the extra kernels had nothing to do with your:

sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-wireless

[Pithikos]

Thanks for the fast reply but I am having some problem with the commands. So far I can see these:
>dpkg -l |grep 2.6.32.21
ii linux-backports-modules-wireless-2.6.32-21-generic 2.6.32-21.11 compat-wireless Linux modules for version 2.
ii linux-headers-2.6.32-21 2.6.32-21.32 Header files related to Linux kernel version
ii linux-headers-2.6.32-21-generic 2.6.32-21.32 Linux kernel headers for version 2.6.32 on x
ii linux-image-2.6.32-21-generic 2.6.32-21.32 Linux kernel image for version 2.6.32 on x86
ii linux-image-2.6.32-21-preempt 2.6.32-21.32 Linux kernel image for version 2.6.32 on x86
ii linux-image-2.6.32-21-server 2.6.32-21.32 Linux kernel image for version 2.6.32 on x86
So what I want is to just have the generic kernel that I had from the beginning when I installed ubuntu-desktop. And by the way is it right that the kernels are x86? As I installed Ubuntu x64 for my system :S
If I am right I should remove all of those except linux-headers-2.6.32-21-generic, linux-image-2.6.32-21-generic and linux-headers-2.6.32-21.

I tryied running
sudo dpkg -e linux-backports-modules-wireless-2.6.32-21-generic and
sudo dpkg -e linux-backports-modules-wireless-2.6.32-21-generic linux-image-2.6.32-21-preempt linux-image-2.6.32-21-serverbut none seems to work. With the first command I get "dpkg-deb: failed to read archive `linux-backports-modules-wireless-2.6.32-21-generic': No such file or directory" and with the second I get "dpkg-deb: --control takes at most two arguments (.deb and directory)"

[iponeverything]

Sorry, I gave you the wrong flag with dpkg, it should be "-r" and not "-e". I am so used to just pulling things out of my head, that I rarely check any more!

[Pithikos]

OK thanks a lot! I cleaned up the system now :> Had to run
sudo dpkg --purge <package> also to clear its config files

About the runlevel I read somewhere that Ubuntu does have only 2 runlevels and the default is 2. I run
runlevel and it replied with "2" so didn't do anything further. On next reboot it was just running like normal :)