Ubuntu 9.10 X Stuck in restart loop - I think

Question

Trying out Ubuntu, installation went fine - upgraded to the proprietary nVidia drivers but on restart I get a login prompt and the screen is flashing really fast almost as if Xserver is trying to start and failing, I can type when the screen isn't in a "flash" as it were and it's so fast and random it's hard to even type a login name without it missing some characters - this makes typing a password (i.e. not being able to see which characters made it or not) very hard.

I can log back into the live cd and alter my settings - but I can't even find out how to stop X stop starting on boot; Looks like they've moved everything around :-p

I'd like to:

• Stop X from crashing and going insane (if it is actually Xserver)
• Know how to stop X from starting on bootup, Looks like interactive boot is also off by default now

Update: A temporary work around seems to be enabling ssh and just connecting to the box over the network - ssh seems to work fine :-p

Cheers, Chris

Solution 1

If you can get logged in, you can type "sudo killall gdm", which would kill the default Ubuntu Display Manager. If not, boot using the Ubuntu CD and find the file /usr/sbin/gdm and rename it to "gdm.not" or something, so you can boot to a tty and remove the NVidia driver that (you believe) is causing the problem using aptitude. Rename gdm.not back to gdm and reboot.

Solution 2

To properly fix the infinite respawn, start in recovery mode, and edit /etc/init/gdm.conf. Remove or uncomment the "respawn" line.

Now you can restart the machine, and gdm won't start at all. You can log in to a terminal, diagnose the original problem (probably a driver issue), and once you can get X to start again, you can uncomment the respawn line and restart your system.

It's a known bug in launchpad: #431166

Comments

[Christopher Lightfoot]

I've tried adding in the "DontZap" option and this may have worked; It takes so long to reboot into the live cd I've not "tested" it yet but I had a boot where the screen was flickering and then all of a sudden it started the login screen - so maybe it did change somthing.

[Christopher Lightfoot]

Tried enabling Xinerama and got stuck in the same loop, so it doesn't seem to make a difference.

[Christopher Lightfoot]

Ctrl+Alt+F{1-6} seem to "work" but the screen is flickering so bad (I also noticed the lights on my keyboard are flashing at the same rate - caps lock, num lock, etc so I guess the whole of X server is restarting) it's impossible to type.

[Christopher Lightfoot]

Removing /etc/X11/xorg.conf allows a successfull boot - X now seems to be able to start without any settings and use some basic standard config - didn't find correct drivers or resolution but it was better than nothing :-p

[quack quixote]

vt1-6 shouldn't have anything to do with the X-server. maybe the nvidia driver you installed is conflicting with the console framebuffer. see if booting to the recovery option gets you a stable console.

[Christopher Lightfoot]

I thought that too but had same experience with nv and Nouveau drivers.

[Christopher Lightfoot]

I couldn't find out how to get grub to load, Seems they disabled it to increase boot tim?

[Christopher Lightfoot]

Disabled the menu rather, not grub itself :-p

[quack quixote]

hmm. they've probably switched to Grub2 for 9.10, i haven't used it. i'll see if i can find some details for you.

[Christopher Lightfoot]

Yep, This was a couple weeks before the official release - back then there was no interactive boot, GRUB just continued without letting me hold escape :(. I've not tried it since but I'm guessing this has been changed.

[Christopher Lightfoot]

makes me laugh how simple this is probably to fix and how insane it drives poeple (and eventually puts them off from using linux) and nobody seems to care leaving it with low priority. Leaving your machine unusable without restarting and editing config files is the realm of windows, not linux. What happened to grace? :-D. 8.10 Is still my best friend until the 9.X branch gets its act together - also still waiting for multi monitor support!! :-D

[qedi]

9.x lacks muli monitor support? News to me. I have three machines running 9.04 or 10 with it. Sounds like a new question to me.