XServer after upgrade not working

Ok, so I updated my Kubuntu 10.10 install to 11.04 and now when I log on I land in a consoile instead of getting a GUI - the rest seems to be working fine though.

I'm using a Radeon 4870 with the proprietary drivers (since the open source ones don't seem to allow some fanspeed control which gets annoying) and my xorg.conf has those entries:

Section "ServerLayout" Identifier
"aticonfig Layout" Screen 0 "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" 0 0 EndSection

Section "Module" EndSection

Section "Monitor" Identifier
"aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0" Option
"VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver" Option "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor" Option
"DPMS" "true" EndSection

Section "Device" Identifier "aticonfig-Device[0]-0" Driver
"fglrx" BusID "PCI:1:0:0" EndSection

Section "Screen" Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" Device
"aticonfig-Device[0]-0" Monitor
"aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0" DefaultDepth 24 SubSection "Display" Viewport
0 0 Depth 24 EndSubSection EndSection

When running sudo startx I only get some error messages, see here

No idea how to solve this problem - actually not even sure what those errors mean - but I'd prefer getting around reinstalling the complete OS for a botched Xserver.

Voo

Posted 2011-05-15T15:07:23.773

Reputation: 134

Answers

So the solution was quite easy after all. Reconfiguring the xserver or KDE didn't help uninstalling xserv-xorg alone also had no effect. But purging every every xorg and xserver package and completely removing the ati drivers and then installing the newest ati drivers with a new xserv worked fine (apart from the fact that I had to build the ubuntu version of the debs, but oh well seems to work).

So seems like the upgrade process didn't work well with the ati driver and my xserver version - well probably just the ati drivers..

Voo

Posted 2011-05-15T15:07:23.773

Reputation: 134

Try running

$ startkde

From the console window. That should start it up at the very least.

Although its a different distro, take a look at these installation guidelines to make sure that KDE will be running properly and start:

KDE - ArchWiki

Simon Sheehan

Posted 2011-05-15T15:07:23.773

Reputation: 8 641

Using startkde only prints "$display is not set or cannot connect to the X-Server". the ArchWiki article seems about getting KDE to startup automatically at startup which I fear is the least of my problems right now - or do I misread something? – Voo – 2011-05-15T15:21:55.603

It is both, as well as starting and configuring. – Simon Sheehan – 2011-05-15T15:23:14.730

Well they cover installing KDE and then how to start it. But since KDE is already installed and won't start, the crucial step in between is missing. – Voo – 2011-05-15T15:44:38.190

As did your dbus start? Im scrolling through here – Simon Sheehan – 2011-05-15T15:45:11.170

Yeah I get a Job already running message when trying to start it. – Voo – 2011-05-15T15:51:56.047

I did find another person suggesting a reinstall of x-server. – Simon Sheehan – 2011-05-15T15:54:49.477

Ok, that would mean backing up the conf file and then doing sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg or a full apt-get install --reinstall xserver-xorg ? – Voo – 2011-05-15T15:56:22.237

I'm not sure, I do not use Ubuntu flavors. Do what you feel is comfortable. I recommend backing up the conf either way – Simon Sheehan – 2011-05-15T16:00:13.247

1Yeah I'm also user only usually and have not much experience with it, but well - it can't make the xserver much worse anyhow, so let's try it ;) – Voo – 2011-05-15T16:02:52.417

Looks like your default run level may have changed. Landing on a CLI interface is indicative of being in runlevel 3, you want runlevel 5 (GUI mode).

If you wanted runlevel 5 to be the default, then you need to edit /etc/inittab.

look for "# The default runlevel."

yours probaly says

id:3:initdefault:

Change it to

id:5:initdefault:

Restart and you should be in runlevel 5 now.

Amartel

Posted 2011-05-15T15:07:23.773

Reputation: 675

Sadly that file seems to be missing. I only have an init and init.d directory in /etc but nothing even similar to inittab :/ – Voo – 2011-05-15T15:34:16.640

are you listing the hidden files and directories? – Amartel – 2011-05-15T15:42:21.937

I used sudo ls -a just to be sure, which I think covers all bases. I found one post that claimed that inittab was replaced with rc-default in /etc/event.d but since that file (well not even dir) also doesn't exist that not especially helpful either. But I think that's not the problem anyways, since manually starting kde/xserv throws errors as well. – Voo – 2011-05-15T15:47:58.110

you may want to simply remove KDE and reinstall it, as it obviously is having issues starting. http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/puregnome for the console commands

– Amartel – 2011-05-15T15:59:43.217

Yeah I assume that's the next step after reinstalling the xserver. Just in my previous experiences with that, it only made matters worse - but then there's not much else I can try it seems, thanks. – Voo – 2011-05-15T16:01:46.273

I did have to do this a while back and it was not bad, although I decided that I liked Gnome better so i left it there :-) – Amartel – 2011-05-17T18:00:00.147