ubuntu-16.04 window manage stopped working.

[Josef Wolf]

On Mon, Nov 04, 2019 at 12:04:16PM +0100, Liam Proven wrote:
> On Mon, 4 Nov 2019 at 11:25, Josef Wolf <jw at raven.inka.de> wrote:
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > today, I rebooted this box after an uptime of about three weeks. After this
> > reboot, the window manager stopped working.
> >
> > - No dash
> > - no menu bar
> > - the only thung I can do is to right-click onto the desktop and start
> >   "Terminal" from the context menu.
> > - no window decorations
> > - windows are created in the upper left corner
> > - no window switching via <Alt>-<TAB>
> >
> > I have never ever tweaked anything on my desktop. So I guess, it is
> > Unity/Compiz what I am using.
> >
> > So how can I track down why it stopped working?
> >
> > How can I select a different desktop environment to get the system into a
> > usable state?
> 
> Well, I am not sure, but here are my first thoughts:
> 
> * Unity needs working OpenGL. Something may have knocked that out.

Hmm, how do I check this?

> Stuff to try:
> 
> * If you can get a terminal, then you can update, right? So do that:

running apt update/upgrade was one of the first things I did.

> sudo -s
> apt update
> apt dist-upgrade -y

Hmmm... Usually, I am somewhat reluctant to dist-upgrade

> * If that does not help at all, try starting with the kernel parameter
> ``nomodeset'' in case there are kernel graphics driver problems.

With nomodeset, the system crashes when switching to graphical login.

Then I tried to

  apt install kubuntu-desktop

No I get this:

You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 kde-telepathy-minimal : Depends: kde-config-telepathy-accounts (>= 15.04.0)
 but it is not installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try using -f.

root at bu201:/m/b/home/jw# LANG= apt-get -f install
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  kde-config-telepathy-accounts
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  kde-config-telepathy-accounts
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
416 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0 B/137 kB of archives.
After this operation, 825 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] 
(Reading database ... 637173 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack
.../kde-config-telepathy-accounts_4%3a15.12.3-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking kde-config-telepathy-accounts (4:15.12.3-0ubuntu1) ...
dpkg: error processing archive
/var/cache/apt/archives/kde-config-telepathy-accounts_4%3a15.12.3-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb
(--unpack):
 trying to overwrite '/usr/share/accounts/services/google-im.service', which
 is also in package account-plugin-google 0.12+16.04.20160126-0ubuntu1
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.23-0ubuntu11) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/kde-config-telepathy-accounts_4%3a15.12.3-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
root at bu201:/m/b/home/jw# 

Now I select KDE, but instead of getting a desktop, when I log in, I get the
iunitial wallpaper and after a while the screen is turnde to black. Only mouse
pointer. Nothing else is displayed and nothing can be selected/clicked.

I guess I'll go try "dist-upgrade".

-- 
Josef Wolf
jw at raven.inka.de