General :: Lost StartX - Black Screen With Active Mouse Cursor
May 25, 2010
Redhat Ent Linux ES Release 2 (Taroon 8)
Kernel 2.4.21-4.ELsmp
startx(1): initialize X session - Linux man page
I thought I'd look into methods of recovering from a lost password for future use, how to change the passwd and shadow should I need to. So I started an X session, vi'd my .swp files then logged off. Perhaps I changed one of these files accidentally, but my intent was just to view them which I did. After starting up my computer the next day and logging in I began an X session - "startx". The session appears to have started, but with a black screen and an active mouse cursor.
I installed Ubuntu 11.04 today as the main OS on my laptop.I had deleted my XP partition, and repartitioned it according to a guide I had found. (http:url)......Basically it was setup like this: 500mb ext2 primary partition, has the grub folder, I believe this is either the '/' partition, or the '/boot' partition 2gb swap space logical partition
10gb ext4 logical partition -- this is either the '/' or the '/boot', it contains the 'bin,boot,cdrom,dev' etc folders 243gb (the rest of my hard drive, with the exception of a partition that contains documents and files from my XP OS, formatted to NTFS) ext4, this is the one that has all my desktop/documents/etc folders.After Ubuntu was done installing, I had some message pop up about installing an ATI proprietary driver for my ATI graphics card (an ATI Radeon HD 4330, I believe, I may have messed that number up). I installed it and rebooted, no problem.
Next, I had another update window pop up with 198 items checked and ready to download and install. I went through all of this, and rebooted, again, no problem.Next thing I did was install some apps that were essential for me to have to use for my work (an ide, chat programs, etc). No problem with any of that.Last thing to install was the OSE Virtualbox, and then I installed WindowsXP Pro and Windows Vista Business, then installed the guest addition addon for VB. This all worked without any issues whatsoever.
Time goes on, and I notice my computer is heating up much more than (seemingly) normal. I begin to wonder if its my graphics card. So I shut down the computer and let it cool down. Reboot, and no problem, still working fine.Then I opened a couple of apps and tried a simple game (can't remember the name) I believe it was a simple 3d topdown, as I wanted to test my graphics card. This is where things seemed to start to go wrong. My laptop began hanging, not even allowing me to access the terminal via ctrl+alt+f2. The screen flashed and I saw the blue/green/grey fuzz that I get when the graphics card is starting to heat up too much. Then everything hangs and I can't do anything at all, including move the mouse. I did a hard reboot (I believe this is what you call pulling the plug/pressing the power button, correct me if I'm wrong). I then rebooted, saw a chkdisk, then it booted seemingly normal, but it hung right after the purple screen after the grub screen.
This is pretty much where I'm at right now. I strongly suspect the fault is with the ATI drivers, but have been completely unsuccessful in my attempts to fix it. I've googled just about everything I could think of, along with searching these forums. I've tried just about everything listed in the forums, but to no avail.I've tried the commands that are supposed to purge the ati drivers, but all I get are errors that say they can't remove the 'virtual drivers'.
Right now I'm booting off a live cd, so I know the computer still works fine, just not my actual installed OS. I'd really like to get the issue resolved without having to reinstall, as it took quite awhile just to get it usable in the first place, but this has already taken so much time, I may just resort to that if we can't solve it any other way. Got too much work to catch up on as it is.As a re-instated note, perhaps if you have any tips, but not particularly about fixing the OS, my laptop (I'm strongly guessing my graphics card) is heating up much more than normal, compared to that when XP was installed. Is this more than likely just a driver issue, as is the rest of it? Also, I did have Compiz installed, though I didn't choose for it to be installed, I believe it came pre-installed. I've heard it could cause some issues, though I have no idea as to the validity or relation to this particular issue.
Edit: I just remembered while searching for a solution, I found a post somewhere that said something about the information not being sent to the monitor from the graphics card properly, thus no desktop. I'm guessing that'd still fall under the driver issues, but again, I'm unsure. I would think that wouldn't be entirely true anyway, since I can still see my mouse fine, just no desktop, only a black screen.
I turned on my Acer laptop and during bootup it seemed normal. After it passed the blue Acer logo, all I could see is a black screen and a black cursor outlined in white in the shape of an X. Thinking it would be a one time thing, I turned it off again.it still was a black screen.
I left slackware 13 with airodumb and airplay executed in console for 6 hours. When I got back, konsole had something similar to "packet has length error". I could open the packet using aircrack -m option, but when i shut down the OS, it didnt shut down properly. Now when I do startx black window stays forever. I tried pkgtool and change to KDE but the same happens.
I'm trying to install Ubuntu 8.04 on my computer (yes...I know version 10 is out...I will get it when I get this version installed).Here's my dilemma, I get through all the way to the partition. I don't have Windows on the computer, so check the button labeled something like "Whole Disk" or something along those lines. So, after a while (about 1+ hour), it all of a sudden turns into a black screen with the "running" mouse on top of it. The screen isn't frozen, the mouse is still moving, and it sounds like the computer is still "chugging" away
I did a fresh install of Slackware64 13.37. All went well. I download the latest Ati video drivers, 11.4, and build the slackware package. Install, and run aticonfig --initial all good. But when I run startx I only get a black screen
I have a problem with booting from a USB flash drive. I have Acer TimelineX 3820TG. I have Windows 7 Home from Acer and I installed Mandriva OS from USB(from USB because this Acer doen't have a DVD drive). It was OK, but I want reinstall Windows 7 and so I did. Now I have Windows 7 Professional and it wrote over Mandriva's GRUB. It wasn't a big problem. For a while I was just using Windows 7 but now I am thinking that I need some OS with Linux and I am thinking about Ubuntu. But when I tried to boot from USB with Ubuntu I get a black screen with a blinking cursor after the BIOS POST.
I was trying many applications to create a bootable USB drive and many versions of Ubuntu (and other Linux distributions), but nothing worked. I tried to Google for answers but I found many problems where all booting goes to black screen but in my problem Windows 7 boots fine from disc but from USB doesn't work.
I installed backtrack4 (ubuntu based) few hours ago and i am facing a problem in getting into the graphical mode(live cd)!, hence I tried to check and run it in a "safe graphical mode" and unexpectedly it works fine! but when I switch to 1024x768 resolution in the same live cd ,and then when I type startx it just produces a black screen! After doing some research on finding a soultion to this problem I found out that this go to do some thing with editing the xorg.conf file! but when I type xorgconfig,it shows an error saying command not found!
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg command just talks about the keyboard! nothing interesting on graphics or screen section! resource: intel corporation 828456/gl 128 mb
I am trying to boot up Linux Mint 7 after a packages upgrade and it boots up but then it shows this and stalls.And similar messages for GDM and then it just shows a black screen with a single blinking cursor on the middle left of the screen. I cannot do anything except press the CTR-ALT-DEL combination to re-boot, then it shows the usual shutting down messages and does the re-boot.I am running the 2.6.28-19 kernel and I have upgraded the Ubuntu packages on my Linux Mint 7 system from Jaunty to Karmic. Please help as I do not want to re-install. I am running Knoppix 6.3 ATM and I should be able to chroot from that if necessary. I am booting from /sda1 that has Linux Mint 8 installed and grub 1.97.
When trying to "startx" the machine goes to a black screen and just sits there. Only a hard reboot allows me to stop it. After SSHing into the machine and typing "startx"
I updated Debian system yesterday. I am getting black screen after I execute startx command. I am using system as server and manually boot into GUI mode whenever required.
I have just installed slackware. I have done Code: Xorg -configure And chosen kde for init program while installing slackware. But when I type Code: Xorg -config -retro or Code: startx I get black screen with blinking button on monitor and keyboard. Obviously KDE doesn't start.
1. I start the computer and after startx I got black screen, the keyboard is not responding the led of the display is yellow etc. Now I reset the computer, 2. Booting Windoze 3. Choose Restart not Shutdown from Windoze 4. Booting Slack 5. startx works fine, the X server is starting and working great.
I have Radeon 9500. I configured X server with 3D accel over 2500 FPS on glxgears. The same problem persists even with X server VESA configured.
I'm having a pretty serious problem, whenever I try to boot into Ubuntu the screen goes black, I see a flash of purple or violet and then i get a prompt asking for my login credentials, afterwards I'm stuck with a terminal trying to start the gui... I don't know what I'm doing wrong, fresh install tried to reboot after getting the display driversinstalled idk if that could be a problem. I tried to commands in the terminal already:
startx sudo service gdm start return = start: Job is already running: gdm
I'm running debian (AMD64 dist), and I recently upgraded via aptitude to KDE 4.3.4.After the upgrade I found that I could no longer start X (using startx from my user account).I am, however, able to launch kdm from a root command line and log in as a user to X this way (graphically).I want to run startx as a user and I cannot figure out where the hangup is. I've looked in my Xorg.0.log files comparing .old to current and nothing stands out. After I launch 'startx' the screen goes black and the computer waits. I can hit ctrl-alt-f2 and bring back the text-mode terminal screen; it's at a point where it looks like X is working. From there, I can control-c it and get back to the command prompt.
I'm thinking this is a software configuration thing but I don't know enough about how all the systems tie together to figure out where the problem is.
have a problem with an Acer Aspire one running linpus linux. I get a black screen with a white mouse pointer at startup. I don't know how this happened. I can interrupt the startup process with ^c and then see the following amongst other text :Loading x11 FronEnd module...Failed to laod x11 FrontEnd moduleFailed to launch SCIM
I decided to give a try to VNC server on my remote dedicated centos machine. WHAT I DID:
yum groupinstall "X window system" yum groupinstall "GNOME Desktop Environment" yum install vnc-server Followed the Centos wiki tutorial.
PROBLEM: After typing the password in my vnc viewer I get a black screen with cursor. I can move the cursor about but thats it.
SOLUTION: I have googled like crazy for the last 2 days but have not found a solution yet. My best guess is xorg.conf file, but I am quite new to linux so could be wrong.
I'm a linux newbie so go easy on me with technical terms.I've got a Acer Aspire One ZG5. Everything was working fine until one day when I went to switch it on and it shows up everything its suppose to, the blue logo etc but then it loads upto a black screen with the mouse poitner. I can move the mouse pointer around and such and the lights flash but stop suddenly.I can't use the bios recovery disk as I haven't got a USB big enough.
I am using fedora 15 on my dell studio 1558 . Sometimes a black screen appears with a cursor blinking when i tries to reduce the brightness of the laptop and somethimes it automatically happens . And i am not able to do anything its just like the blue screen of death as in windows . the only way to get back is by restarting the computer
Seems to happen with every version! I have the same problem as my last thread. Basically it was solved by removing an IPv6 line from the hosts file or adjusting the vnc configuration to use an IP and not host name. Both of these are not working for me on 11.3. I'm not seeing any errors in log/messages. It just sits there with an X cursor that moves around then times out after around a minute or so. I don't know if there are any other logs that will help.
To clarify, starting a vncserver from a terminal will work, but the 'Remote administration' vnc with the login screen will produce a fully black screen with an X cursor that updates with my mouse position.
Just did a fresh Ubuntu 10.10 (minimal) install on my Asus EEE PC 1001PX.Before the minimal install I had Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.10 which worked flawlessly, now all I get is a black screen with a blinking cursor:for the amazing quality, but I guess it's better than nothing.ctrl+alt+Fx does nothing, ctrl+alt+del reboots the computer.Booting with the usb-stick that was used for the install takes me to the login...
I installed some weeks ago Fedora 14 via burnt iso file downloaded from official Fedora site. It was working perfectly like a charm for me until yesterday when I tried to install zend server for PHP.During my first try of installation of zend server it corrupted out my apache server and I lost apache on http://localhost.I removed all "zend-server" like stuff from "Add Remove Software" screen.
Installed again apache 2 in the form of LAMP (Linux Apache Mysql Php)via terminal. Apache installed correctly and started workeing again ok on localhost.n again I tried to install zend server from install.sh file in downloaded zend server installation. It showed me after a while like "zend server installed successfully".I shut down my pc thinking everything is ok now.
Today when I started my system, it shows me boot screen of Fedora, I select fedora and then it shows me baloon filling up for around 5-7 secs. Then all of a sudden a black screen appears up with a cursor blinking at its top left and then nothing else happens further. I cannot find login screen to my desktop anymore.I remember one thing thating reinstallation of apache from terminal, I set following command like "chkconfig --level 235 httpd" (I guess that's what I have written as per some online tutorial for LAMP). Is that cause of mine problem ot its something else?
I have just wiped my whole hard drive to install a fresh copy of Ubuntu on it, and now as soon as i power it up it passes the POST screen and black screen shows up with a flashing cursor. I bliv it should say no operating system and pick the USB which has Ubuntu installation on it.I have formated the hard drive to NTFS, the system is Samsung NC10.
A few weeks ago I installed Ubuntu 10.4 beta on a pc. I upgraded it to 10.4 RC and 10.4 final release. I think it was after upgrading to 10.4RC that I started having a problem during startup. Here is what happens: I turn the pc on the bootstrap process occurres, then the grub screen comes up I let ubuntu boot. For a few seconds I get a black screen with a blinking cursor. The Ubuntu splash screen flashes on the screen for maybe a second or two. Then I'm dumped to the command prompt on TTY1.
At this point I can log in with a username and password type startx and I'm at the ubuntu desktop. If I log off I'm back at the command prompt on TTY1. If I press alt-ctrl-F7 at the command prompt this is what I see, these are the last four lines of text: init: ureadahead-other main process (742) terminated with status 4
I have windows 7 + Ubuntu 10.04 in dual boot, I noticed that sometimes the ubuntu was not booting.
Right after I select the os in grub (ubuntu) the screen goes black with the blink cursor and nothing happens, that's all no messages it's stuck there forever.
Today, it does this every time I try to enter Ubuntu, it's just stuck there.
just did a dual boot install on a brand new DEll T1500. The machine has win7 on it. I booted off the live CD and all looked well. Installation went well. When I reboot, I get grub, select the top linux option and then see a small black blinking cursor for a few seconds, then nothing. The screen reports no signal.
I have installed Maverick onto an INTENSO 320GB USB Hard Disk. I can boot from GRUB, but only get a dark grey screen, with no cursor. I have tried editing the boot script, removing "quiet & splash" and putting in "nomodeset". I have also tried "i915.modeset=1" and "i915.modeset=0". Also "xforcevesa" and "nouveau.modeset=0". None have worked. I have not been able to reach a console screen to log in. Here are the specifications of the machine:
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Are the number of spaces between "ro" and "quiet and splash" essential? There are three spaces on the boot script and I have left them there. Ubuntu works fine as a live CD, and I experienced no problems with the installation.
