Score:0

Ubuntu

How to? re-install desktop/gui on Ubuntu 22.04

JamesIsIn

7/7/24, 5:19 PM

I had an old 16.04 system which was having issues but was set for retirement. I needed to get it working well enough to log in and get some data from two graphical applications.

I tried upgrading to 18.04 which was a big struggle (involving purging and re-installing Perl and Pythong(3?)). Could not get to a login screen.

Upgraded again to 20.04 (which went very smoothly) but still no graphical login screen (just the white-red dots screen). In 20.04 I was being prompted for credentials for a network share so I know fstab was being parsed.

Upgraded again to 22.04 (which also went smoothly). No longer parsing fstab and still no login screen.

I can console in and I can ssh in so I can make changes. I tried suggestions around the login loop issue and around logging into blank screens, but none of that had any noticable impact.

I looked at the output for both sudo apt install ubuntu-desktop-minimal and sudo apt install ubuntu-desktop but those involve adding more than 300 packages, so that seems the wrong route entirely.

I have now run sudo apt install ubuntu-desktop-minimal and now show the current version of the waiting screen, but the system still fails to get a graphical login screen.

Suggestions?

336

1 + 8

R A

7/7/24, 5:29 PM

Your command doesn't install anything on my desktop system, which means it's fine and you should do it.

JamesIsIn

7/7/24, 5:31 PM

Hmmm... confirmed on my lappy too. Well, here's mud in your eye...

JamesIsIn

7/7/24, 6:05 PM

I am now getting the new waiting screen (the spinning not-quite-arrows), so... progress? Still no login screen.

user535733

7/7/24, 6:11 PM

Retrieving data also be done using a LiveUSB's "Try Ubuntu" environment.

JamesIsIn

7/7/24, 7:15 PM

@user535733 -- I need to run a couple of applications in their current state on that system to extract data from those applications directly (data that is not text accessible otherwise).

R A

7/7/24, 7:52 PM

@JamesIsIn Try starting Ubuntu in recovery mode

JamesIsIn

7/7/24, 9:11 PM

If I hit Shift-Esc I see three lines on the console: 1) Starting Message of the Day... 2) [ OK ] Finished Message of the Day. 3) [*** ] A start job is running for Hold until boot process finishes up (3h 12 min 3s / no limit) . That might be a useful clue.

JamesIsIn

7/7/24, 9:24 PM

After a reboot I was able to access RM. I started networking, made sure Grub was up to date, and ran dpkg to repair anything missing. Returning to the normal boot sequence dropped me at a console login. I was able to login in as per usual. Rebooted again. Same situation: graphical waiting page but no login page.

Score:0

Ubuntu

vanadium

7/10/24, 11:16 AM

First try whether reinstalling plymouth may restore a graphical login screen:

sudo apt purge plymouth
sudo apt install plymouth

If that did not work, the better advice may be to start afresh: wipe all that is there, and do a fresh install. Your current system may have become a Frankenstein system by now. Reinstalling will be the fastest and by far the cleanest solution.

Otherwise, since you got the system this far to boot a basic terminal based linux system, you could

Remove most of the graphical packages and reinstall. A sudo apt remove --purge xserver-xorg plymouth will probably be more than enough to remove anything related to a graphical desktop. Still run a sudo apt autoremove afterwards. Then install a minimal ubuntu-desktop

Boot from a live CD of Ubuntu 22.04 and perform a reinstall without erasing the existing partitions. Also that will preserve user data and configuration.

+ 8

JamesIsIn

7/10/24, 4:29 PM

Is xserver-org the correct package name? E: Unable to locate package xserver-org (Purging and reinstalling Plymouth itself now leads me to a console login with no GUI splash.)

vanadium

7/11/24, 6:16 AM

I corrected the name

JamesIsIn

7/11/24, 4:21 PM

Thanks. Now that I have done this reboots briefly show the spinning splash screen and then I am dropped to a console login. Do I need to do something special to tell the system to start X (automatically)?

JamesIsIn

7/11/24, 7:42 PM

(Running startx enters Gnome on X rather than Ubuntu so followers should be aware of this distinction.)

vanadium

7/12/24, 8:22 AM

A reinstall would have taken you an hour. If that fails, attempt installation of older versions. If these fail, expect possible hardware issues with that computer.

JamesIsIn

7/12/24, 2:50 PM

I know the hardware is good and this issue persisted across two machines when I moved the drive. I'll try the CD re-install.

JamesIsIn

7/12/24, 5:38 PM

The live version makes no offer to in-place re-install. Not clear about using the "somehting else" to get there. I would need to know how to utilze (or protect) each existing partition.

vanadium

7/13/24, 6:53 AM

A re-install is done through "something else", so you must know your partitions indeed.

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