MidnightJava
January 1st, 2016, 09:03 AM
I updated Xubuntu from15.04 to 15.10. The upgrade completed with no errors, but I can no longer login via the desktop. The lightdm login window comes up with my account selected, but when I enter my password it re-displays the login window. I can login to a command line session. I switched from lightdm to gdm, and the same thing happens when I log in.
So it seems that perhaps it's a video driver problem. I had already (on a previous upgrade) removed the proprietary drivers because they weren't compatible with the latest kernel, but I purged them again to be sure, and tried many, many other things. I can't find any way to get the Ubuntu desktop to launch. I removed the proprietary drivers like this:
sudo apt-get remove --purge xorg-driver-fglrx fglrx*
sudo apt-get install --reinstall libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri xserver-xorg-core
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
What else can I do? I know it's not LTS, but I didn't expect the entire GUI to become unusable from an upgrade. My video driver is AMD/ATI RS780L [Radeon 3000]
EDIT: /var/log/Xorg.0.log shows normal loading of open source drivers. Maybe the idea of a video driver problem is a red herring. What else would prevent the startup of the desktop? Any troubleshooting advice would be appreciated.
EDIT: I narrowed down the problem, and still stumped as to a solution. I created another user, and when I log in as that user from the DM, the xfce desktop opens properly. Furthermore, if I open a command line for DISPLAY 0 at ctrl-alt-F1, login as the original user (for which the desktop has not been starting) and start the xfce desktop manually on DISPLAY 1 (startxfce4 -- :1) the xfce desktop launches.
So it boils down to: how do I make the xfce desktop start automatically for the original user when logging in via the DM? I tried using the lxdm display manager, but the same problem occurs. I also looked in detail at all the hidden files in the two user home directories, and I cannot see why the xfce desktop starts for the new user, but not for the original one. I've re-installed and re-configured window systems, window managers, display managers, made changes to /etc/xdg/xdg-xubuntu/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-session.xml——all to no avail. I can't find any way to make the desktop work as it did before the ill-fated upgrade.
So it seems that perhaps it's a video driver problem. I had already (on a previous upgrade) removed the proprietary drivers because they weren't compatible with the latest kernel, but I purged them again to be sure, and tried many, many other things. I can't find any way to get the Ubuntu desktop to launch. I removed the proprietary drivers like this:
sudo apt-get remove --purge xorg-driver-fglrx fglrx*
sudo apt-get install --reinstall libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri xserver-xorg-core
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
What else can I do? I know it's not LTS, but I didn't expect the entire GUI to become unusable from an upgrade. My video driver is AMD/ATI RS780L [Radeon 3000]
EDIT: /var/log/Xorg.0.log shows normal loading of open source drivers. Maybe the idea of a video driver problem is a red herring. What else would prevent the startup of the desktop? Any troubleshooting advice would be appreciated.
EDIT: I narrowed down the problem, and still stumped as to a solution. I created another user, and when I log in as that user from the DM, the xfce desktop opens properly. Furthermore, if I open a command line for DISPLAY 0 at ctrl-alt-F1, login as the original user (for which the desktop has not been starting) and start the xfce desktop manually on DISPLAY 1 (startxfce4 -- :1) the xfce desktop launches.
So it boils down to: how do I make the xfce desktop start automatically for the original user when logging in via the DM? I tried using the lxdm display manager, but the same problem occurs. I also looked in detail at all the hidden files in the two user home directories, and I cannot see why the xfce desktop starts for the new user, but not for the original one. I've re-installed and re-configured window systems, window managers, display managers, made changes to /etc/xdg/xdg-xubuntu/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-session.xml——all to no avail. I can't find any way to make the desktop work as it did before the ill-fated upgrade.