Blank screen after booting (details in post)

[CeejRab]

any chance you tried to log in with command mode? (alt+ctrl+F1)? Maybe you could run commands more easily from here.

i think im onto something with xorg, hold on

*update: Its very weird to have issues on a fresh install of ubuntu, especially when the liveCD works fine. Im puzzled but hey thats the fun of being a computer tech right? lol

[linuxnovice]

well it sounds like you cant access disk utility from anything but a LiveCD and the live cd doesnt do any good in this instance because its acting as the host computer so mounting or unmounting there will only mount or unmount them to the liveCD not to the actual computer's ubuntu OS.

If you could access disk utility from the main OS then you could make sure theyre mounted. But im thinking thats probably not your issue now that im seeing is a xorg problem.....

I agree. Because after running just "mount" when in recovery mode this is what I got:

/dev/sda5 on / type ext2 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,size=10%,mode=0755)
none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880)
none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)

So it seems that my SSD which is /dev/sd5 gets mounted properly. Now, if its an xorg prolbem, I still don't understand why the liveCD would work without any problem. Its not as if the liveCD is displaying on a monitor which is not connected to my graphics card.

In any case, I dont running gnome-control-center on recovery would work since X isnt even running. But I'm still hopefull I can with the help of people like you here can fix it!

[linuxnovice]

any chance you tried to log in with command mode? (alt+ctrl+F1)? Maybe you could run commands more easily from here.

i think im onto something with xorg, hold on

*update: Its very weird to have issues on a fresh install of ubuntu, especially when the liveCD works fine. Im puzzled but hey thats the fun of being a computer tech right? lol

Indeed it is. But like I said hopefully we can figure it out. I did try to swtich to a text terminal after getting a blank screen but it wouldn't work as well which is very puzzling.

[CeejRab]

exactly, so the ssd seems to be working fine.. Xorg may or may not be the problem, i think its drivers still but we'll see...

yeah i feel like this is a one on one tech support and im a total failure xD i just did the same thing yesterday, 3 pages of back and forth with someone trying to fix a desktop problem where there were black bars at the top and bottom. I finally helped them fix it though by sending the commands to reset the unity desktop. So, hopefully someone wiser will come along and help us both or i guess we are fighting together until then lol

BRB with more ideas.

PS: How experienced with ubuntu are you? You seem pretty wellversed in linux

[CeejRab]

Indeed it is. But like I said hopefully we can figure it out. I did try to swtich to a text terminal after getting a blank screen but it wouldn't work as well which is very puzzling.

*Facepalm*

[linuxnovice]

I joined in 2006 as linuxnovice, I not a novice anymore. I am a computer science P.hD student who does all his work in linux but likes games as well, hence the windows dual boot .

[CeejRab]

Heres a little something i found, not sure if it will work but its worth a try.

1) Login to "Recovery mode" (line 2 in grub)

2) You will come to a "Recovery Menu" , please
choose (5) root .. "Drop to root shell promtpt"
.. then <Enter>

You can now edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf or hopefully
use the xorg.conf.backup if you have it, or run
'dexconf' to make a basic xorg.conf .

[CeejRab]

I joined in 2006 as linuxnovice, I not a novice anymore. I am a computer science P.hD student who does all his work in linux but likes games as well, hence the windows dual boot .

Haha nice, good for you! I dont have the official badge but you can see what ive done on my bio.

Keep us (just me right now lol) posted on what youre trying so i dont offer the same idea youve already attempted

[CeejRab]

you can try this as well, looks promising according to others with similar issues:

(each line is a separate command)

sudo apt-get purge nvidia-*
sudo apt-get install --reinstall xserver-xorg-video-intel libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri xserver-xorg-core
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
sudo update-alternatives --remove gl_conf /usr/lib/nvidia-current/ld.so.conf

[linuxnovice]

you can try this as well, looks promising according to others with similar issues:

(each line is a separate command)

sudo apt-get purge nvidia-*
sudo apt-get install --reinstall xserver-xorg-video-intel libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri xserver-xorg-core
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
sudo update-alternatives --remove gl_conf /usr/lib/nvidia-current/ld.so.conf

I will try that in a bit. It takes a while to boot into liveCD and back into recovery mode. As per your earlier suggestions I was able to read/edit my xorg.conf file. I will paste it here in case it will help:

# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig: version 319.49 (buildmeister@swio-display-x64-rhel04-03) Tue Aug 13 20:42:18 PDT 2013

# Warning: This file is autogenerated by nvidia-prime. All changes to this file will be lost.

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "layout"
Screen 0 "nvidia" 0 0
Inactive "intel"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
# generated from default
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "keyboard"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
# generated from default
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "Unknown"
HorizSync 28.0 - 33.0
VertRefresh 43.0 - 72.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "nvidia"
Driver "nvidia"
BusID "1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "intel"
Driver "modesetting"
EndSection

Section "Screen"

# Uncomment this line if your computer has no display devices connected to
# the NVIDIA GPU. Leave it commented if you have display devices
# connected to the NVIDIA GPU that you would like to use.
Identifier "nvidia"
Device "nvidia"
Monitor "Monitor0"
Option "UseDisplayDevice" "none"
SubSection "Display"
Modes "nvidia-auto-select"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "intel"
Device "intel"
Monitor "Monitor0"
EndSection

I will not attempt to purge nvidia stuff and reinstall xserver and return back with the results.