Ubuntu 9.10 X Stuck in restart loop - I think

Ubuntu 9.10 X Stuck in restart loop - I think

Trying out Ubuntu, installation went fine - upgraded to the proprietary nVidia drivers but on restart I get a login prompt and the screen is flashing really fast almost as if Xserver is trying to start and failing, I can type when the screen isn't in a "flash" as it were and it's so fast and random it's hard to even type a login name without it missing some characters - this makes typing a password (i.e. not being able to see which characters made it or not) very hard.

Asked by: Guest | Views: 279

Total answers/comments: 1

Comments display order:

Guest [Entry]

"If you're on the console, you can try to get to a text-based virtual terminal (from the broken GUI login) by hitting Ctrl-Alt-F1 (you can also use F2-F6; switch back to the X virtual terminal using Ctrl-Alt-F7).

If you can login there, shut down the X server with sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop. Then you can use Aptitude, apt-get or other commandline tools to locate and uninstall the proprietary NVidia drivers, or try to reconfigure them to get them working. Test your changes with the startx command (remember, X runs on vt7, so if you need to switch back to the text console use Ctrl-Alt-F1). Once you've gotten it working you can resume normal GDM functionality by rebooting or by running sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start.

You can boot straight to a commandline with the 'recovery' entry in the Grub boot menu. This will boot to a maintainence mode, allowing you to login as root and perform any system operations as needed."