X is black after removing all files /tmp files

[Serg Belokamen]

Just a tip for the future, /tmp on *nix type systems is quiet
different to temporary directory on Windows. /tmp stores session ID's,
etc. so deleteing them can cause your machine to frezee or in your
case screen blanking. Reboot will help (as a final resort if its a
server platform).

On 28/07/05, ZIYAD A. M. AL-BATLY <zamb at saudi.net.sa> wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-07-27 at 22:29 -0700, Charlie Zender wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I successfully installed Ubuntu Hoary on a Dell Inspiron 7500,
> > but now the X display doesn't work. It worked fine after the
> > original installation then I did something stupid and now the
> > X display appears totally black, i.e., it's running but you
> > can't see anything. What happened is that I accidentally
> > deleted all the files and directories in /tmp while X was
> > running, i.e., I deleted the gconfd-zender, gpg-tEoLTf,
> > mapping-zender, orbit-zender directories.
> > Then I rebooted and now X is "back in black".
> >
> > I tried removing then re-installing the X server and gnome
> > but that did not work. The screen is still black.
> >  From what I can surmise, there must be an X or gnome config file
> > somewhere besides /tmp that contains state-ful information that
> > I must manually delete before the system can reset itself correctly.
> > Anyone know how to get my X back without re-installing Ubuntu from
> > scratch?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Charlie
> >
> > --
> > Charlie Zender, surname at uci.edu, Department of Earth System Science
> > University of California, Irvine CA 92697-3100. Tel: (949) 824-2987
> >
> >
> >From a console (press CTRL+ALT+F1 and then login) do:
>         sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop
>         sudo rm -r -f /tmp/* /tmp/.X* /tmp/.ICE* /tmp/.gdm*
>         sudo /etc/init.d/xorg-common start
>         sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start
> 
> See if that fixes your problem.  If not, then it's most likely a GNOME
> problem and not X (to make sure, does it start GDM or not?  If GDM
> starts normally, then your problem is definitely a GNOME one).  Try
> creating a new user using (again, from a console):
>         sudo adduser
> 
> and answer the questions.  Switch to X by pressing ALT+F7 and login
> using that new user ID.  If it works, then all you need to do is reset
> your original user ID's GNOME session settings by deleting
> "~/.gnome2/session*" and "~/.gnome2/.gnome-smproxy*".
> 
> Hope this fix your problem.
> Ziyad.
> 
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