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Yasha Karant
Asked: 2022-09-20 18:46:33 +0800 CST

How to get Xwindows and MATE at boot

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This will be a rather long question. I did two upgrades to my laptop: I increased the system RAM to the maximum and I replaced the 2 TB hard drive with a 4 TB SSD. The system was 22.04 and the current system is 22.04, but kept current (previously using Software Updater GUI application). I first did the trial to verify that the hardware was indeed working and then did the full install with the proprietary driver box "checked". I then rebooted; everything worked but neither my previous /home directories nor my /opt nor /usr/local had my personal files and selections. I did NOT touch any of the systems file directories installed by the Ubuntu installer GUI, and thus ended up with a single 4 TB partition with an ext4 file system (I prefer partitions and XFS rather than ext4). After following instructions for how to blacklist the nouveau open driver for the nvidia proprietary driver, I was able to get a Xwindows GUI started. I did this by booting, going to a scrolling terminal screen (say on F3), logging into a scrolling screen, startx, and the standard Ubuntu Gnome GUI starts -- not MATE. Note that xinit fails but startx does work. Clearly, a configuration file is wrong. Note that on the system default screen, ctrl-alt-F1, all I see is a white outlined X on a black screen (the pointing device does move the X), no window manager. As I am using MATE, I need marco. Clearly, one or more configuration files are not correct. Any suggestions? Note that all of the relevant packages, such as the Nvidia proprietary packages and the MATE packages were installed from Ubuntu, not built by myself nor manually downloaded and installed.

nvidia

1 Answers

  1. Evidently, some package configuration file had an issue. I did as root

    apt purge gdm3

    apt install gnome gnome-core ubuntu-desktop ubuntu-desktop-minimal gdm3

    and now a normal graphical login appears. Note that the additional packages listed on the apt install line were the packages that the purge of gdm3 listed as were going to be removed along with gdm3. Although Gnome was installed, in fact MATE is offered as a "gear choice" before password but after user is selected from the GUI login, and MATE works fine.

    If any reader of this question can explain which systems files were "corrected" by the above commands, such clarifications would be appreciated to aid in the understanding of what actually happens during the Ubuntu startup of both a GUI login and a GUI window display manager (such as marco for MATE).

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