XFree Broken For Good?

[Steve Haines]

On Friday 31 December 2004 21:09, you wrote:
> Steve Haines wrote:
> > An apparent glitch in the HD created a fatal error in booting 2.6.9. I
> > ran fsck, and it found a lot to correct. After that I rebooted and got as
> > far as the GDM waiting circle. No XWindows.
> >
> > Is there a way to completely start over with xserver and GDM without
> > reinstalling Ubuntu? Or is the damage terminal? I am using the Libranet
> > partition for the moment.
>
> Usually there are two kernels installed, one normal and the other failsafe.
> When you reboot try to go to grub and select the failsafe and see what
> happens.
>
> I highly suggest that once you can reboot successfully, go into a console
> and fsck your system and finally aptitude and install ext3 onto your file
> system. I'm not sure but I sense you have ext2.  If ever you get a crapped
> out system and you need to reboot, the odds are much higher that the system
> will recover gracefully with much less intervention on your behalf.
>
> The above are only suggestions.  ext3 has proven itself with me on two real
> occasions where electricity in the entire building was shutdown without any
> notice(i.e. blackouts).  I was able to reboot without any issues.
>
> Concerning your xserver installation, I find it quite surprising that it
> does not detect your hardware as before in order to provide you with your
> settings correctly.  I remember two tools: xresprobe and mdetect are used
> for the xserver you might want to look into these.
> Happy New Year.

Thanks David. Unfortunately Ubuntu was already using ext3. Where I may have 
ruined the partition is when I ran "fsck /dev/hda3" (the Ubuntu partition) 
from the Libranet partition _without_ unmounting it first.

Hda3 fsck's okay, but xserver-xfree86 will not install. I am at a loss for 
what to do next except re-install Ubuntu. I can get to the Ubuntu partition 
from the LN partition, so I can save the myriad of "hint" files that I have 
saved from the list :-)