~Toughbooktalk~

I am not sure of how it happened, but when I booted up today, I had no menus or controls, just the Desktop! I can not even shut down the computer correctly, as I can not get to that control.

I am on this machine now and the only way I got into Firefox was to open a .URL shortcut I had left on the desktop That said, Firefox is running fine, just awkward to start! I am out on a job and have no other PC.

Any ideas?

Do you have a bail-out usb live system you can boot into?

Nope, I am writing this from Windows. My PC is dual-boot.

I am wondering if there is a way to get to terminal from the desktop, without the aid of the sidebar or the menu? This way I could just reload the GUI from the Command line...

A Live resuce cd can be downloaded from:

http://www.livecdlist.com/
(Thx UNCNDL1)

That would give you a way to boot, then fix your ubuntu partition.

You said you could boot to guest????

So...boot to guest then [ctrl][alt][T] etc.

I looked around in my spare time found a bunch of guys telling other guys that they were stupid...without much help.

No help at this point....sorry Bill.

glitch wrote:A Live resuce cd can be downloaded from:... That would give you a way to boot, then fix your ubuntu partition.

I can boot just fine, my GUI just does not start. Why do you think that there is something wrong with my partition? The GUI runs fine in the guest account. Jeff this is why I believe that it will do no good to run terminal from there, the changes will not be saved to the primary account.

OK, I have gotten my computer to log into Terminal, and I have run update, and that worked, but did not fix my problem with my GUI.

I have also noticed that OpenGL is not running/opening correctly on Compliz.

Any ideas?

I wish I could give you better help, but I never run Ubuntu. What I would do is re-install compiz, the display or window manager. I don't know precisely what subsystem names those are, though. Which version of Ubuntu are you running?

My usual line of thinking would be to use dpkg --list and apt-cache search to target certain packages for re-installing. Do you know if you are running Unity, gnome classic or some other desktop environment?

First, Back up your data, I say again, back up your data.

If you can log into a guest account, open a terminal.

in the terminal type "su" leave a space and then your user name.

It will ask for your password. "su" is not "superuser" but "switch user"
it goes to the root account if no name is specified.

Now changes made will stick in your account.

I would check the differences between the working guest account
and your not working account.

As a last resort I would reload Ubuntu. How did you load it the first time?

PS I use rescue cd's to look at and fix broken systems, that is why I suggested
getting a rescue cd. I dont think anything is wrong with your partition,
just a bad choice of words.