I can see Ubuntu from the command line, but no GUI interface - how can I fix this?

user3284954

4/10/24, 7:40 PM

I have an older version of Ubuntu installed on an older Vista era laptop with only 4 GBs of RAM, but with a modern Samsung solid state drive.

I booted the laptop (which had not been used for over a good year) and it booted to my GUI interface and all looked good. With in less then a minute, it said I have updates to do and to click the button to update. I did this any many updates were installed. No error messages. After the updates were installed, it said to reboot to finish the updates. I rebooted, but the laptop only came up to a blinking cursor. This lasted for many hours and nothing has changed, no matter how many hours I let it sit.

I learned of a command of "Ctrl, Alt, F4" and tried that. A screen came up asking for my user ID and password. After I entered that, another screen came up which almost filled the entire screen (in text, not GUI interface). It says I am running Ubuntu 18.04.6 LTS A205 tty4

I see no error messages. I do see a line of text that says:

"27 additional security updates can be applied with ESM apps."

I also see a line that says:

"Your Hardware enablement stack (HWE)is supported until April 2023"

I wish to upgrade my version of Ubuntu. Because this laptop is so old, I decided on Lubuntu 22.04.2 LTS. I built a flash drive for this and tried to install it.

The trouble is, in this laptops current state, when I turn the Toshiba laptop on, all I get is a blinking cursor - - it will not boot to a GUI interface. When I try to boot to the flash drive of Lubuntu 22.04.2 LTS, the Toshiba will boot to it and I see the selection to try or install Lubuntu 22.04.2 LTS. But when I click on it or I click on the graphic selection below it, nothing happens. I get the blinking cursor. I let it sit for several hours and it is still a blinking cursor.

I think if I could somehow repair, fix, or somehow boot to the GUI interface, I can probably get Lubuntu 22.04.2 to install.

Can anyone point me to some commands I can use from the terminal interface (that I only have access to at this time) so I can perhaps fix the Toshiba so it will boot to the GUI interface?

I think (but I am not sure) that if I can get the Toshiba to boot to GUI interface after I turn it on and off, I can probably load Lubuntu 22.04.2.

But I am not very skilled in Linux so I am open to any other suggestions.

Many thanks,

mraroid

0 + 3

boot

lubuntu

petep

4/10/24, 8:17 PM

Try "sudo systemctl isolate graphical.target"

user3284954

4/11/24, 11:48 PM

Thank you petep. I found the issue. I was installing Ubuntu on a old laptop that could only take a 32 bit install. I could not find a version of Ubuntu that was current & 32 bit. So I ended up installing a 32 bit version of Debian. All seems OK now, but I must say, I much prefer Ubuntu.....

guiverc

4/12/24, 12:46 AM

Flavors like Lubuntu (& Xubuntu) had *i386* ISOs into the *disco* cycle (19.04 or 2019-April product), but *i386* was not built for later releases. The last *i386* release was in 2020-August (https://fridge.ubuntu.com/2020/08/14/ubuntu-18-04-5-lts-released/) being a respin of the earlier 18.04 LTS which is in its last *days* of EOSS or *standard support*. Excluding 18.04, only 32-bit support exists via *armhf* or 32-bit ARM v7 in Ubuntu moving forward. For some older hardware, the older kernel stack often performs better, eg. Lubuntu 22.04 (or 22.04.1) will have an older kernel than 22.04.2

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