How to start desktop?

[VanillaMozilla]

I just upgraded to Ubuntu 16.04 32 bit. It's a little scary, because at least once the computer booted but the desktop failed to start. The computer seems unusually slow to start, and logging in is slow. My fear is that it could become a permanent problem, with no functioning desktop.

In case this happens, does anyone know the command to start the desktop? I assume I could just start it manually. At that point I would be grateful for either the Unity or fallback desktop.

I don't think it's a hardware problem. I don't have a log, or at least I haven't checked for one.

[ajgreeny]

I see you are using a 32 bit system which leads me to query your hardware specs; Ubuntu with unity needs a fairly high spec machine, particularly graphics, so I wonder if you are at the edge as far as hardware is concerned.

If you are not totally sure show us the output of terminal command
sudo lshw -short
Please use Code-Tags for terminal output. See my signature below for a How-to

[VanillaMozilla]

I see you are using a 32 bit system which leads me to query your hardware specs; Ubuntu with unity needs a fairly high spec machine, particularly graphics, so I wonder if you are at the edge as far as hardware is concerned.

For what it's worth, I don't use the Unity desktop. And I don't think hardware specs. are on the edge. But in any case, here you go.

H/W path Device Class Description
================================================== ====
system Inspiron 530s
/0 bus 0RY007
/0/0 memory 128KiB BIOS
/0/4 processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8300
/0/4/a memory 32KiB L1 cache
/0/4/b memory 6MiB L2 cache
/0/4/0.1 processor Logical CPU
/0/4/0.2 processor Logical CPU
/0/24 memory 4GiB System Memory
/0/24/0 memory 2GiB DIMM DDR2 Synchronous 800 MHz (1
/0/24/1 memory DIMM [empty]
/0/24/2 memory 2GiB DIMM DDR2 Synchronous 800 MHz (1
/0/24/3 memory DIMM [empty]
/0/1 processor
/0/1/0.1 processor Logical CPU
/0/1/0.2 processor Logical CPU
/0/100 bridge 82G33/G31/P35/P31 Express DRAM Contro
/0/100/1 bridge 82G33/G31/P35/P31 Express PCI Express
/0/100/2 display 82G33/G31 Express Integrated Graphics
/0/100/19 eth0 network 82562V-2 10/100 Network Connection
/0/100/1a bus 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Control
/0/100/1a/1 usb3 bus UHCI Host Controller
/0/100/1a.1 bus 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Control
/0/100/1a.1/1 usb4 bus UHCI Host Controller
/0/100/1a.2 bus 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Control
/0/100/1a.2/1 usb5 bus UHCI Host Controller
/0/100/1a.2/1/1 input B015-000 R0.75 USB to PS2 adapter.
/0/100/1a.7 bus 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Contro
/0/100/1a.7/1 usb1 bus EHCI Host Controller
/0/100/1a.7/1/6 bus HighSpeed Hub
/0/100/1a.7/1/6/4 printer Pro9000II series
/0/100/1b multimedia 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Control
/0/100/1d bus 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Control
/0/100/1d/1 usb6 bus UHCI Host Controller
/0/100/1d.1 bus 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Control
/0/100/1d.1/1 usb7 bus UHCI Host Controller
/0/100/1d.2 bus 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Control
/0/100/1d.2/1 usb8 bus UHCI Host Controller
/0/100/1d.7 bus 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Contro
/0/100/1d.7/1 usb2 bus EHCI Host Controller
/0/100/1e bridge 82801 PCI Bridge
/0/100/1f bridge 82801IR (ICH9R) LPC Interface Control
/0/100/1f.2 storage 82801IR/IO/IH (ICH9R/DO/DH) 4 port SA
/0/100/1f.3 bus 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller
/0/100/1f.5 storage 82801I (ICH9 Family) 2 port SATA Cont
/0/2 scsi0 storage
/0/2/0.0.0 /dev/sda disk 500GB WDC WD5000AAKS-7
/0/2/0.0.0/1 /dev/sda1 volume 47MiB Windows FAT volume
/0/2/0.0.0/2 /dev/sda2 volume 272GiB Windows NTFS volume
/0/2/0.0.0/3 /dev/sda3 volume 3380MiB Windows FAT volume
/0/2/0.0.0/4 /dev/sda4 volume 189GiB Extended partition
/0/2/0.0.0/4/5 /dev/sda5 volume 187GiB Linux filesystem partition
/0/2/0.0.0/4/6 /dev/sda6 volume 2925MiB Linux swap / Solaris partitio
/0/3 scsi1 storage
/0/3/0.0.0 /dev/cdrom disk DVD+-RW AD-7200S
/0/3/0.0.0/0 /dev/cdrom disk
/0/5 scsi3 storage
/0/5/0.0.0 /dev/sdb disk 500GB WDC WD5000AAKX-7
/0/5/0.0.0/1 /dev/sdb1 volume 465GiB EXT4 volume

[ajgreeny]

OK, nothing there that is an obvious problem to me; a dual core Intel CPU and 4GB of ram, using the integrated Intel graphics should work fine as far as I can see.

You say you're not using unity desktop, so what are you using instead?

[him610]

Why do the entries that address memory,


/0/24 memory 4GiB System Memory
/0/24/0 memory 2GiB DIMM DDR2 Synchronous 800 MHz (1
/0/24/1 memory DIMM [empty]
/0/24/2 memory 2GiB DIMM DDR2 Synchronous 800 MHz (1
/0/24/3 memory DIMM [empty]

show empty DIMM slots?

Could it be the memory is misconfigured? That it should be 4*1GB DIMMs instead of 2*2GB DIMMs plus two empty memory slots which the BIOS does not recognize because it expects 4*1GB.

Does anyone else have an opinion on this?

[ajgreeny]

Your motherboard obviously has 4 ram ports on it and they are possibly paired as 0 & 2, and 1 & 3.
I doubt that has anything to do with the problem, unless there is something that we are both unaware of.

Do you have a computer manual for that machine which gives any information on the ram ports?
Is it a desktop or laptop, and can you open it to move the ram chips around?

[him610]

How about running this command from the command line...

hwinfo --memory
It shows are different view of your memory.

[VanillaMozilla]

Thanks for the replies. It's time for a status report and some clarification.

There are two problems here. The first problem is that the GUI fails to start. (I said "desktop", but I meant "GUI".) Normally a login prompt is briefly displayed in text mode, and then the GUI is supposed to start automatically. (I think I have GRUB 1, which may give a different boot sequence from what you all are used to.) Since the problem only occurred about twice shortly after the upgrade, the problem may not be as serious as I feared.

If any of you happens to know how to start the GUI manually, that information would be most welcome. I'm not asking for research here. :) (I'm using GNOME Flashback Metacity, but I think it's the x session -- or whatever it's called -- that needs to be started.)

The second, relatively minor problem is slow login (with either GNOME Flashback Metacity or Unity) and slow shutdown. It happens on this computer, but not on an older, slower one. I have a fairly generic setup, with little customization. This doesn't warrant heroic effort at this time, especially since I haven't given you much to go on. (I suspect it could be a network problem, but I want to defer that for another time.)

I really don't think there's any hardware problem. I have not tested recently, but the hardware has always been flawless, and everything worked well until this update. Memory is supposed to be configured in slots 1 and 3 first (numbered 0 and 2 in the report); 2 and 4 can be empty. It is configured correctly. I'll supply more info about memory later, when I have that computer available.

[him610]

From the command line...

startx
Good luck

Note: I have an E7200 with 4GB RAM. It is my main machine; still runs great.

[ajgreeny]

Unfortunately, I don't think the startx command will work any more with 16.04 using systemd instead of upstart; I think you will have to use the command
sudo service lightdm start assuming lightdm is your display manager, which I am uncertain about if using fallback desktop or unity. Change that command to start whichever dm your system uses.

[VanillaMozilla]

Lightdm is my display manager, as far as I can tell.

hwinfo is not installed, so will not pursue that further.

Thanks very much for thoughtful replies. For now I'm inclined to put this on the back burner so I don't waste too much of your time. The system is actually working fairly well now, and little clues are still presenting themselves. I may try again when I know more. It's odd that both upstart and systemd are running and remain running.

For the record, the start commands did not quite work. On my system:
startx
starts only the generic pink background and a big 'x' mouse cursor.
service lightdm start
gives a nonfunctioning login screen with a warning that the system is still booting.
service gdm start
gives an error message but no GUI (I have lightdm).

[VanillaMozilla]

Update: I'm not going to mark this as solved, but for whatever reason, I haven't had any more problems.

And it's still slow to start, but that's probably because it uses over 400 MB, whereas it used to used about 200 MB. The funny thing is, in spite of 200 MB of "improvements", it still works about the same as always, or maybe not quite as well. Oh, well.