Ubuntu 8.10 Installation Problem

[Ray Parrish]

Tom Hanser wrote:
> Package: installation-reports
>  
> Boot method: CD drive.
> Image version: January, 2009
> Date: March 15, 2009
>  
> Machine: Dell Dimension 2300
> Processor: P4 1.6 Ghz
> Memory: 1 Gb
> Partitions: <df -Tl will do; the raw partition table is preferred

>  Only one partition was created during installation.

>  
> Output of lspci and lspci -n:  ?????
>  
> Base System Installation Checklist:
> [O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it
>  
> Initial boot worked:    [0]
> Configure network HW:   [0]
> Config network:         [0]
> Detect CD:              [0]
> Load installer modules: [0]
> Detect hard drives:     [0]
> Partition hard drives:  [0]
> Create file systems:    [0]
> Mount partitions:       [0]
> Install base system:    [0]
> Install boot loader:    [0]
> Reboot:                 [0]
>  
> Comments/Problems:
>  
> Installation went PERFECT.  No problems.  After restarting and logging in, I am left with a light brown desktop color, NO menus, no icons, and a working mouse.  No key commands will result in anything happening on the screen.  No right click contextual menus, no nothing.
>  
> I am only using the onboard video graphics adaptor – no other video card is installed.  Everything appears fine during the installation, until after a restart and login.
Hello,

Well, I don't see the results of any lspci commands there, but since you 
also stated that you couldn't enter any commands, I'm not surprised. I 
recently was faced with nearly the same situation upon booting up one 
morning.

All of my panels, menus, and desktop decorations were gone, just a blank 
desktop staring back at me.I was however, able to use the ALT-F2 key 
combo to bring up a Run box, and I started a Terminal from there, to use 
to run further commands, which I then used to gradually rebuild my menu 
system, and Desktop piece at a time.

It took me most of the day, and part of that night to get everything 
back that I had previously configured, including all of the Compiz 
settings, but I got it all redone, and haven't had any problems with it 
again. I think I may have also ran the "gtk-window-decorator --replace" 
command from that run box when I first started it up as well.

I have previously had quite a few boots, which appeared to load 
everything properly, but after completion, the menu panels would not 
drop down into view for use, and ALT-F2 would not work as well. I could 
see the edge of the menu panels, they just would not react at all. 
CTRL-ALT-Backspace did work, but upon logging back in, the menus would 
be in the same condition, so I would have to ALT-F1, then "sudo reboot" 
to get rid of the problem.

Occasionally it would happen on two boot ups running, so on the next 
reboot I usually would switch back to an earlier kernel version, which 
always seemed to boot properly for me then. I'm not real sure what was 
causing the problem, but did notice that alsa would log error messages 
in xsession.errors each time, which it does on every boot up anyway, so 
that's not much of a clue.

Come t think of it, I haven't had that problem again, since I changed my 
clock source from tsc, to the following one on the end of my kernel's 
load line, "clocksource=acpi_pm". Before that, on each boot, the tsc 
clock source would get flagged as unstable by the system, which would 
then load acpi in it's place.

I haven't had that error message in the logs for quite soe time now, and 
I think it has also stopped booting to the frozen desktop since around 
the same time. Check through the System Log viewer for errors, and see 
if any of them might be hanging your boot up prematurely, before your 
panels and menus load.

Have you tried using ALT-F2 or CTRL-ALT-F1 when the problem happens? If 
not, check to see if they will work if it happens again. Another thing 
you can try, since you stated that your mouse still worked, but wouldn't 
bring up a right click menu, is to add an application Launcher for 
perhaps Nautilus and maybe Terminal on your Desktop, and see if you can 
start them next time. If so, you should be able to rebuild everything 
from there.

OK, I'm out of suggestions, hopefully something will work for you.

Later, Ray Parrish

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