Ubuntu 12.04 changed itself to xubuntu and stopped working

[Bret Busby]

On 30/07/2015, Colin Law <clanlaw at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 30 July 2015 at 11:11, Bret Busby <bret.busby at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hello.
>>
>> I have an Acer V3-772G laptop computer, which has an Intel i-7 4702MQ
>> Haskell CPU/graphics controller and an nVidia GEForce GT-750M graphics
>> thing.
>>
>> I have on the system, Debian 7, Debian 6, Ubuntu 14.04, and, what was
>> Ubuntu 12.04, installed.
>>
>> After two yars of trying to get the computer working, I have found
>> that, of those operating systems, only the two Ubuntu systems have the
>> necessary drivers.
>>
>> To get the interrface that I wanted, I installed the mate desktop
>> environment, along with a number of other desktop environments, and
>> have been using the mate desktop environment as the preferred desktop
>> environment, on both of the Ubuntu installations.
>>
>> In the last week, the Ubuntu 12.04 installation changed the boot
>> splashscreen, to a blue one, and, after the blue splashscreen, the
>> screens (I use an external monitor) go blank, and nothing else is
>> displayed auntil I do a crash/reboot, using the power switch (holding
>> it down until the system stops breathing).
>>
>> I have found that the blue screen displays "xubuntu", and in searching
>> for that, I have found that xubuntu is an xfce version of Ubuntu.
>>
>> I had not wittingly switched the system from being Ubuntu, to xubuntu.
>>
>> In using the recovery mode booting, and getting to a root shell
>> prompt, I tried to use apt-get remove xfce, in the hope that that
>> would get rid of the switch from Ubuntu to xubuntu, and it reurned
>> "xfce not found".
>
> Did you have autologin enabled?  If so then first try disabling it so
> that it should take you to a login screen where you can choose which
> ui to use.

That is how it was set up, before it changed itself to xubuntu, and,
after I had logged in to the mate desktop environment, it had
defaulted to that login - the environment was still selectable, but,
unless I changed it at the login screen, it defaulted to the mate
desktop environment.

I do not remember exactly what had happend the last time that I have
logged in to it - I have been uding Ubuntu 14.04, for a while (a week
or so, or a couple of weeks) now, but, it may have been that I tried
the xfce desktop when I logged in, and it decided "stuff this, get rid
of ubuntu, and switch to ubuntu".

I have no longer got a 12.04 system to check, but have
> have a look at /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf if it exists.  In there you
> should find a section [SeatDefaults] with a line
> autologin-user=<your user name>
> Make a backup of the file in case you mess it up and then in the
> original delete the text after the = in that line and reboot, which
> should take you to a login screen.
>
> Colin
>


-- 
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
 you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
 Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
 "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
 A Trilogy In Four Parts",
 written by Douglas Adams,
 published by Pan Books, 1992

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