HELP! Cannot use mouse or keyboard any more

[Robert Heller]

At Sat, 6 Jun 2015 07:30:25 -0700 "Ubuntu user technical support,  not for general discussions" <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:

> 
> 
> 
> 
> Answering several suggestions:
> 
> Ctl-Alt-F1 does nothing -- keyboard not working, after all
> Keyboard and mouse are USB.  Mobo has no PS/2
> Keyboard and mouse are unchanged, but I have tried spares.
> I have tried a previous kernel.  No help.
> I don't know how to boot into another user or session -- and unless it's
> something grub can do, I'm probably unable because of having no keyboard
> once the kernel starts

If you can get to grub (which you say you can), you should be able to start in
single user mode, either by selecting 'rescue mode' or directly editing the
boot line (add 'single' to the end of the kernel command line). I don't know
if Ubuntu has a way of starting *without* X11 -- with CentOS and many 'older'
Linux distros, this would be runlevel 3 (as opposed to runlevel 5) --
appending the kernel command line with '3' in grub would do that. Once in
single user mode (or non-graphical login mode) you can then change the
runlevel and/or disable graphical login (I don't know how to do that with
?Ubuntu, but someone else on this list should be able to help with that). You
can also poke around and look at various log files, etc.

*I* am NOT a fan of booting up to the GUI login -- all of *my* machines boot
up to a (black) console login and I start X with xinit/startx *after* I have
logged in, or in some cases don't start X at all (if I do not need to). Also
all of *my* machine boot up verbosely, listing all of the start up steps, etc. 
If there is a problem I can watch for where things are broken.

It sounds like you have something fishy going on with the X Server.  And 
possibly other issues as well, since Apache is not starting either.

> 
> System is on a LAN, but unavailable.  It normally serves apache, but that's
> not working either, which has me worried.  I would have thought the server
> would be up whether I logged in or not.

It should be.  What do you mean by 'unavailable'? Can you ping the machine (eg 
does ping work or does ping claim the host is 'unavailable'?  If the latter, 
it sounds like there is a problem with the network interface(s) on the 
machine. 

> 
> On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 5:32 AM, Robert Heller <heller at deepsoft.com> wrote:
> 
> > At Sat, 6 Jun 2015 08:17:21 +0100 "Ubuntu user technical support,  not for
> > general discussions" <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > On 6 June 2015 at 04:49, Kevin O'Gorman <kogorman at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > I'm running Xubuntu, and have done for quite a while.  Right now it's
> > at
> > > > 14.04.   I just hosed it somehow, and when I reboot I cannot log in
> > because
> > > > the keyboard and mouse are being ignored.
> > > >
> > > > It's not the hardware, because the grub menu works with the keyboard,
> > and
> > > > going to a recovery version of the kernel also works but it's console
> > mode,
> > > > not X.  But when I try a normal boot, the cursor stays in the middle
> > of the
> > > > desktop and the keyboard cannot enter my password.  I have to do a hard
> > > > reset because 3-finger salute is also ignored.
> > >
> > > Does Ctrl-Alt-F1 take you to a console?
> > >
> > > Have you tried booting into a different user or a guest session?
> > >
> > > If you boot into the console and then look at /var/log/syslog for the
> > > failed boot do you see anything that looks relevant?
> >
> > Some other thoughts for the OP:
> >
> > Are the keyboard / mouse PS/2 based or USB?
> >
> > Did you recently change the keyboard or mouse?
> >
> > Is the system on a LAN? Do you have another machine available that you can
> > remotely connect to it with?
> >
> > >
> > > Colin
> > >
> >
> > --
> > Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
> > Deepwoods Software        -- Custom Software Services
> > http://www.deepsoft.com/  -- Linux Administration Services
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> >
> >
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> 
> 
> 

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
Deepwoods Software        -- Custom Software Services
http://www.deepsoft.com/  -- Linux Administration Services
heller at deepsoft.com       -- Webhosting Services