10.10 live CD dumps me to command line

[stg]

Hello again folks,

I am trying to install 10.10 off the live CD. The instructions I am following to setup grub2 multiboot direct me to boot the live session and install from there. I have to f8, f6, esc, -xforcevesa to get safe video on this system if that helps.

Instead of booting to the desktop gui it dumps me to a command line...why??

[raja.genupula]

Hello again folks,

I am trying to install 10.10 off the live CD. The instructions I am following to setup grub2 multiboot direct me to boot the live session and install from there. I have to f8, f6, esc, -xforcevesa to get safe video on this system if that helps.

Instead of booting to the desktop gui it dumps me to a command line...why??

have you tried

ctrl+alt+f7

or


sudo stop gdm
sudo start gdm

[stg]

thank you for the suggestions. I tried ctrl+alt+f7 and it hung the box on a list of "SQUASHFS" errors. Stopping and starting gdm reported "process 2580" and dumped me back at the command prompt.

[dandnsmith]

It sounds like one of several possibilities:
- problem with the CD part way through a download may be bad, or there may be a badly created CD, or you have an about-to-die CD drive
- a hardware resource (insufficient RAM is the usual)
- your method of achieving usable graphics hasn't worked.

If all else fails, you could try the alternate install CD which will let you avoid graphics problems by using a text installer. see this page (http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/alternative-download)

[stg]

Thank you for the response!

I have the same behavior with 2 CDs and 2 optical drives, fairly safe to rule that out I think.

1.2GB of RAM, one would hope this is enough.

Usable graphics, not sure, some new information though.

Broke on the system until late last night, tried forcing vesa and installing direct from CD instead of booting the live session and installing from there. Install seemed to go fine. It asked me the usual questions, downloaded updates, and achieved desktop with the message that I should reboot.

Upon reboot GRUB2 had been successfully installed and saw my windows and ubuntustudio 9.4 partitions..Yayyyyyy!!

However, instead of 10.10 on its partition grub gives me the option of "ubuntu, with Linux 2.6.35-30-generic-pae"

which boots to a command line

???

[dandnsmith]

So, sounds like the install worked - and I think you're saying you could see the grub menu (which uses really basic graphics, and so is no real test), but it isn't trying to start GUI, or is starting and failing.
Have you tried typing startx, which I think is still the way to get the GUI running (if it's configured.
Failing that you have to do the reconfigure graphics (which I was doing a year back, but memory has failed for the moment to give me details of the command, apart from dpkg-reconfigure, and I don't know which package it is - possibly xorg)

[stg]

used the recovery mode in GRUB2 to boot with safe graphics, that was the issue...I suppose this one is solved

thanks for the encouragement folks

[mörgæs]

Good. If this means that your other posts now are irrelevant, please edit them so people are not wasting their time.

[stg]

Good. If this means that your other posts now are irrelevant, please edit them so people are not wasting their time.

well,

why neither xforcevesa nor nomodeset would allow me to boot to a live session is still a mystery

[MAFoElffen]

well,

why neither xforcevesa nor nomodeset would allow me to boot to a live session is still a mystery
While you where in, did you install your video driver... And what video did you have- where you thought you needed "xforcevideo" or "nomodeset"? That would make that all relevant.

[stg]

nVidia GeForce 6600LE

A card I have found problematic with multiple chipsets and operating systems I must admit. My understanding is that xforcevesa is generic and nomodeset is specific to nVidia hardware, please correct me if I am mistaken.

Yes, once I used the recovery option in the grub boot menu to achieve desktop with safe video I was able to install the proprietary drivers no problem. In fact ubuntu is the only OS I have been able to get this card working properly on...go team!