Hi Shawn, I tried to follow your suggestions but they didn't seem to do the trick. After some fumbling around, including the procedure I used to install gnome3, I arrived at a point where everything seems to works well. It looks like Unity 3D is installed.
The one problem that remains is the shortage of disk space. The folder "File System" has 240.4MB remaining. I ran sudo apt-get autoremove and apt-get autoclean but nothing changed. I also tried removing programs that I didn't think I needed but that made things worse: e.g. some apps didn't work any more so I reverted back to the previous state mentioned above. One thing that is different now is that the small window that asks for my password now displays eight options when I click on the white circle on the top right corner. Here is the list: Cairo-Dock (Gnome+Effects); Cairo-Dock (GnomeNoEffects); Cairo-Dock (With Unity Panel); Gnome; Gnome Classic; Gnome Classic (No Effects); Ubuntu; Ubuntu 2D. If I select the seventh option, Ubuntu, things work very well. Selecting the other options gives worse results: e.g. launcher missing. So it seems to me that all I need is the one option Ubuntu. Perhaps removing the others would solve the disk space problem. Is that correct? If so, how would I do that? Thanks for your help. Robin On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 11:21 PM, Shawn <[email protected]> wrote: > So, you know that the graphical manager that Unity was the culprit (the > equivalent of kdm or gdm). So if you do a dpkg-reconfigure on THAT package > - which looks like "lightdm". > > So "sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdm" should solve the original problem and > allow you to pick lightdm over gdm. Then if everything works right, you > can uninstall gnome3. If not, then dpkg-reconfigure gdm to restore > yourself to gnome3 and deal with the drive space issues later. > > At least this sounds like a plan from this end. The important thing is > that you are running again. :) > > Shawn > > > On 12-10-11 08:37 PM, Richard Carter wrote: > >> Shawn, >> >> Thanks for your help. When I tried the solutions you suggested I got >> messages saying that gdm was not found. Indeed when is looked in >> /etc/init.d/ I couldn't find gdm or kde. >> >> So after stumbling around for some time I installed gnome3 following the >> suggestion in >> http://www.filiwiese.com/**installing-gnome-on-ubuntu-12-** >> 04-precise-pangolin/<http://www.filiwiese.com/installing-gnome-on-ubuntu-12-04-precise-pangolin/> >> . >> Success! >> >> Every thing seems to work now except I get a "Low Disk Space" warning >> saying that "Filessystem root" has only 404.6MM disk space remaining" >> and suggesting I get rid of unused programs and move files to another >> disk, i.e. my 500GB HD. I'll work on that later. >> >> Thanks again for your help. >> >> Robin >> >> >> >> On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 3:00 PM, Shawn <[email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]**>> wrote: >> >> You are getting past the boot sequence and then encountering >> problems with the desktop environment. I've seen this sort of thing >> before. Most recently I just updated to the latest version (12.04) >> on a separate hard drive. In the past, I would delete the xorg.conf >> file (rename it really) and let the system recreate it. >> >> At the very least, you should be able to do CTRL-ALT-F1 (twice) to >> get to a command prompt. There you can do everything you need. You >> might try to simply restart the graphical environment: >> >> sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart >> >> (if you are using KDE and the KDE login window, then replace "gdm" >> with "kdm") >> >> I haven't had to mess with the X-Server config for quite some time, >> so I'm not sure what Ubuntu is doing there these days. But, in the >> past I would do >> >> sudo dpkg-reconfig gdm >> >> (or "kdm" for the KDE users) This would often fix the graphical >> environment. >> >> Hope that helps. >> >> Shawn >> >> >> On 12-10-11 02:38 PM, Richard Carter wrote: >> >> Thanks for the tip. I checked the apt history but nothing >> seemed amiss. >> But I didn't really know what to look for. >> >> Robin >> >> On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 1:51 PM, Dafydd Crosby >> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> >> <mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>> wrote: >> >> Hmm, you might want to check your apt history to see if >> something >> got updated in the background that is causing the problem. >> >> -Dafydd >> >> >> On 10/11/2012 12:06 PM, Richard Carter wrote: >> >> This morning for the first time ubuntu 12.04 LTS >> wouldn't start. >> Here are the details. >> >> My desktop PC has 2 drives: a 500GB HD and a 256GB SSD. >> Ubuntu >> 12.04 is installed on the SSD and Debian 6.0 is >> installed on >> the HD. Up until now both worked well: Debian still >> works well. >> >> When I boot to Ubuntu the system gets to the point >> where the >> wallpaper to be used for the desktop is displayed >> together with >> a small window asking for user name and password. When >> I enter >> the password I get the message ' Failed to load session >> "cairo-dock" ' and a log out button is displayed. I >> get the >> same response when I try the other log in options >> available in >> the small window. >> >> I then started in recovery mode and tried: fsck, clean, >> dpkg(fix >> broken packages) and grub(update boot loader). None of >> these >> had any effect. >> >> I would be grateful for advice. >> >> Robin >> >> >> >> ______________________________**_____________________ >> >> clug-talk mailing list >> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> >> <mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> >> >> http://clug.ca/mailman/____**listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca<http://clug.ca/mailman/____listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca> >> >> <http://clug.ca/mailman/__**listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca<http://clug.ca/mailman/__listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca> >> > >> >> >> <http://clug.ca/mailman/__**listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca<http://clug.ca/mailman/__listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca> >> >> <http://clug.ca/mailman/**listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca<http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca> >> >> >> Mailing List Guidelines >> >> (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.**____php<http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.____php> >> >> <http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.**__php<http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.__php> >> > >> >> >> <http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.**__php<http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.__php> >> <http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.**php<http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php> >> >>) >> >> **Please remove these lines when replying >> >> >> >> >> ______________________________**___________________ >> clug-talk mailing list >> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> >> >> http://clug.ca/mailman/__**listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca<http://clug.ca/mailman/__listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca> >> >> <http://clug.ca/mailman/**listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca<http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca> >> > >> Mailing List Guidelines >> (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.**__php<http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.__php> >> <http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.**php<http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php> >> >) >> **Please remove these lines when replying >> >> >> ______________________________**___________________ >> clug-talk mailing list >> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> >> >> http://clug.ca/mailman/__**listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca<http://clug.ca/mailman/__listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca> >> >> <http://clug.ca/mailman/**listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca<http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca> >> > >> Mailing List Guidelines >> (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.**__php<http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.__php> >> <http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.**php<http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php> >> >) >> **Please remove these lines when replying >> >> >> >> >> ______________________________**_________________ >> clug-talk mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://clug.ca/mailman/**listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca<http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca> >> Mailing List Guidelines >> (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.**php<http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php> >> ) >> **Please remove these lines when replying >> >> > ______________________________**_________________ > clug-talk mailing list > [email protected] > http://clug.ca/mailman/**listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca<http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca> > Mailing List Guidelines > (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.**php<http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php> > ) > **Please remove these lines when replying >
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