I broke my xserver

[waylow]

I have just come back to Ubuntu in the past few days (11.04) after a few years on mac

I had some trouble getting my dual monitors to work but I did get them up and running. Now after a few days, I've been working happily, then I started to mess around with my display settings (compiz settings) and changed something

then after a reboot my system was getting stuck on "checking battery status" on reboot

I launched a terminal (Ctrl Alt F1), logged in and could only boot into classic mode

after messing around some more -I have made things go from bad to worse

I couldn't launch into anything except the terminal so
I tried to purge the nvidia drivers so I could reinstall

but the system can't connect to the internet in it's current state
so I couldn't reinstall all the stuff I need

so now my system goes to a purple scambled screen at launch
I can't log in to a terminal or anything


is there a way to rescue the system w/o a reinstall
I can log in with the live CD and view all my files

would it be possible to put back the missing packages and fix the xorg.conf file?

otherwise I can only think of transferring my home directory to another drive, doing a fresh install and then transferring all my files back

any advice

the command I did in the terminal was



sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia*

[bruno9779]

You can download the proprietary Nvidia drivers from their website and copy them on a usb.

Then start up your system am press SHIFT during boot to get the boot selection screen.

Choose "rescue mode"

After logging in, copy the Nvidia installer to your home folder.

cp /media/$nameofusb/Nvidia* /home/$username

make sure that gdm is switched off:


sudo service gdm stop

and start the installer


./Nvidia*

[dino99]

try with purging compiz* then reinstall

[waylow]

Thank you

I couldn't install the driver from the usb but I did manage to get the classic version working again through the "failsafeX" mode


I know am having the same issue as I did a few days ago getting unity and the Nvidia driver activated
(it's activated but not currently in use)


I can't remember how I solved that but I know it's possible because I had it working before


at least I have a working system again

[waylow]

all working now

I deleted all my nvidia, compiz and unity packages from synaptic

then I restarted into classic mode and installed the nvidia drivers (additional drivers)
rebooted into classic mode again
set the nvidia drivers with the nvidia-settings tool
installed unity packages from synaptic
rebooted into ubuntu (with unity)


:)