On my Ubuntu 18.04 laptop two days ago, everything was normal until I tried to log out. I'd closed all tabs and windows I could see. The screen kept indicating it was shutting down, but it never did. When I tried to force a shutdown with the power button the computer wouldn't shut off, nor would it open. There was no mouse pointer on the screen, and I don't know the keyboard shortcuts or terminal commands to perform any actions.I had to put the computer away with a few indicator lights still on.
After two days, I was able to open the computer desktop as usual, but was surprised to see the battery had run down from 100% to 0%. When I tried opening an app, I got a popup notification that Firefox is still running, and I should close it or restart the computer. When I clicked on Restart, I got the usual shutting down display, then the screen went blank -- no cursor, or anything else, just the purplish background colour. I don't know how to use the keyboard make it do things, but when I pressed ctrl+alt+delete I got what looks like a terminal. I don't remember everything shown, but it said there were errors. I was prompted to enter "help" and got several lines of Built-in commands. After pressing Enter and using the arrow keys, which I remembered a reference to, I only got a repeat of that list, which now takes up all the screen; I can't refer back to what was shown before. I only see "(initramfs)" before the blinking space.
Can anyone please tell me what I should do?
