[lubuntu-users] No X following recent update 19.10 (eoan)

[Harry Putnam]

Setup:
ubuntu 19.10 running under LUBUNTU setup
A VBox guest on an `openindian (an offshoot of solaris) Host.

I have the OS setup to boot to console. Just a personal preference
that has been in place thru several versions of ubuntu over a couple of
years. So I have been booting 19.10 this way and successfully entering
X with `startx' for a few weeks.

But following the most recent set of updates ..... (didn't record what
the updates were)

After calling `startx' it ends up with an unresponsive black screen.
Apparently no way to continue.

The screen swallows the mouse so not able to mouse around on it.

I can ssh into the problem host normally and look at 
/var/log/Xorg.0.log.  But, well, there is no Xorg.0.log in /var/log

I wasn't able to tell much from what existing Xorg logs were in place
so did 

  cd /var/log/ 
  mkdir xorg-logs, them moved existing Xorg logs
  into that directory

Rebooted the OS, came up to text console as expected.

called `startx' but it seems to just end in the same unresponsive
black screen.  Nothing visible at all.

However, an odd thing seems to happen.... I went looking for the
/var/log/Xorg log that should have been produced by calling `startx'
but none was created... perhaps the starting of X has not completed?
That is, the startup is still running hence no log report .. ?

So, and ideas about how to proceed to investigate the problem?