What kind of video card do you have? An nVidia? If so, did you
recently do a kernel update? (I know one came through not long ago for
K/ubuntu...). It *could* be that your video drivers were not updated to
match the new kernel. This is kinda common with nVidia cards, though I
used the instructions at www.ubuntuguide.com for nVidia setup last time
around and have not seen this issue since...
The easy fix is to use the basic nVidia drivers. Edit your
/etc/X11/xorg.conf file (as root), and change the video card section -
mine looks like this:
Section "Device"
Identifier "nVidia Corporation G70 [GeForce 7600 GT]"
Driver "nvidia"
BusID "PCI:3:0:0"
EndSection
The "Driver" line needs to be changed to say "nv".
Once that is done, restart your manager (kdm/gdm/etc.). If it IS the
video card problem this will work. But you won't have 3d acceleration.
The Better way to fix this and keep the 3d acceleration is to update
your nVidia drivers. If you don't have your apt sources set up
correctly, this is a bit more of a challenge, and almost always means
doing it manually. Go to the nVidia website and download the latest
universal driver. There's lots of guides for this on the web -
http://www.google.ca/search?q=nvidia+ubuntu will get you started.
If you don't have an nVidia card, then you might need to track down
details for your video card - I think the ATI cards have a similar issue
when the kernel is upgraded.
Of course, this is all assuming it's a video driver error. But this
normally results in errors in the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file which you're
not seeing.
Maybe if you post your /var/log/Xorg.0.log we can take a look?
HTH
Shawn
Richard Carter wrote:
> Mark,
>
> Thanks for your help. Here is what happened.
>
> If I login as robin the mail contains 137 messages all saying that
> backup21 needs to have a file configured. I don't use that program
> anymore so those aren't interesting. When I login as root there aren't
> any messages.
>
> I tried to login to TWN, Twn and Failsafe from the display manager (?)
> screen but in each case it just returns to itself.
>
> I found xsession-erriors: it's empty.
>
> I can't find a file named .xinitrc in / or in /home/robin
>
> There are two other things which may be helpful. First, when I'm
> logged in a console if I don't type anything for a short time lines
> beginning with "DROPPED IN=eth0 OUT=MAC=ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff: " appear
> many times on the screen. This happens both when I'm logged in as root
> and as robin. Second, I have tar balls of /etc, /usr/local and /var
> (minus /var/cache, var/spool, /var/tmp) created just before the problem
> arose. But the tar ball of robin was created after the problem began
> when I found I could log in and use gnome.
>
> I would appreciate any help.
>
> Robin
>
> On 10/1/07, *Mark Carlson* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
>
> On 9/30/07, Richard Carter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
> <snip>
> > However, if I choose "Console Login'" from the Menu tab
> login.succeeds and I
> > get a message "You have new mail", which I don't understand.
> <snip>
>
>
> "You have new mail" when you log in as root: this generally means that
> your system has been running cron-jobs as root (often security-related
> jobs such as checking for UID/GID changes, disk usage, etc.) To read
> them, use the 'mail' command. At the mail prompt, (&), use 'n' to
> read each message if you would like to. I use a .forward file in the
> /root directory to send these messages to an email account I actually
> use. It can be nice for boxes you don't look at often, to see if the
> disk is filling up, or if there have been any ssh brute-force attacks,
> etc.
>
>
> On 10/1/07, Richard Carter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
> > Szemir; After I log in as root, startx starts the gnome desk
> top!!! But if
> > I enter startx as robin lines from /var/log/Xorg.0.log (I think) are
> > displayed none of which begin with EE although one line did say
> that the
> > kernel was disabling IRQ #201. Using find I couldn't find a
> file called
> > xsessions-errors.
>
> The file is named .xession-errors, and it is usually in the home
> directory of your user (/home/user/.xsession-errors)
> 'locate' is often more helpful than 'find' for finding files, if it is
> installed, that is
>
> > Gustin: I checked gdm.log and kde.log but I couldn't see any
> thing that
> > looked l like an error. Xorg.0.log contained some warnings about
> missing
> > fonts, the mode of the clock and the fact that AIGLX: 30 driver
> doesn't
> > support some visuals but nothing beginning with EE I also checked
> > /var/messages. This is a very big file most of which looked innocent
> > although it did say that a message handler couldn't be found and
> that there
> > was a bad irq.
> >
> > The problem with all this is that I don't really know what to
> look for in
> > all these log files so I may well have missed something
> important. I wonder
> > of the problem is that the kde login manager is corrupted?
> >
> > Any further suggestions?
>
> Try a more basic window manager, such as twm. If your display manager
> (where you are logging in from) is returning to itself, it is because
> whatever it tried to run failed to do so. This is what happens when
> you use ctrl-alt-backspace to exit from kde/gnome. So what you need
> to do is find out what is causing it to fail. This could be in the
> xorg log or .xsession-errors. It is usually easier to log in to the
> console as your user, run startx, and go from there.
>
> See if there is a /home/username/.xinitrc file and report back with
> its contents.
>
> This is the #2 reason I don't use a display manager if I can help it.
> Just one more thing to break. (#1 reason being it makes it difficult
> to use other ttys in some circumstances.)
>
> -Mark C.
>
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