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Calixte
Asked: 2011-09-10 05:43:02 +0800 CST

Login and install packages when no DM is installed

  • 772

I recently updated a few machines to 11.10. On one of them, the promt to chose between gdm and lightdm. I tried selecting light dm, but the upgrade tool inevitably returned to the same prompt. I then chose gdm and the upgrade completed.

But now when I tried to boot, the computer presents no login screen. I'm thinking that it's because GDM was uninstalled in the upgrade process.

How can I install lightdm or gdm without logging in traditionally?

PS: apt-get does not seem to work in recovery mode.

apt

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Press Ctrl+Alt+F1 to get to the first console. You should be able to login there.

    I would try to reconfigure lightdm from this console.

    sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdm

    Try installing if its missing

    sudo apt-get install lightdm

    If this doesnt help, check the desktop manager configured in this file

    /etc/X11/default-display-manager
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  2. when booting, on the grub menu where you choose what OS to boot, select the normal option and press e you will now be able to edit the boot lines, select the line starting with kernel and press e again you are now editing the line that loads linux, right at the end of this line add a space and 3 press ESC and then b to boot with the modified line

    this will cause you to boot into runlevel 3 which has no GDM or GUI at all and you should end up in a traditional terminal window. login and run the following command: sudo apt-get install gdm after this has completed, you should be able to reboot and get the usual login screen

    if you can't access the grub menu for some reason, you'll need to boot the machine using a live CD and modify grub to allow you to access the menu

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