Cannot activate Compiz, days spent trying-[SOLVED]

[Vincente]

Look up I edited does it look like what I added?


Either way if the live disk works fine,and after a install vesa should be running....if you can't log in then something is goofy.

Not sure I follow you on this. I tired, quite a while back using the Ultimate Edition liveDVD and instruction from Ubuntu Jaunty on how to, stopping short of re-installation, repair boot process, did not work for me as choices that should been there (according to the book) weren't. It seems now that since I can see a grub screen, then my grub is OK, the problem seems to be "Failed to start xserver...it is likely that it is not set up correctly..." My last go-round with Moebius, I got a bunch of text about "no screens found"---does that mean no resolution settings.

I haven't (knowingly) changed anything. The only changes made were when Amir had me make changes to Tweak Ubuntu and then several pages of code flew by faster than I could keep track, but I did see a lot of installation/reinstallation of compiz. When that whole thing completed, I shut down and rebooted and for the first time got the "failed to start xserver window" which, every since, no matter what I try, keeps coming back. I can tell you that trying code such as: sudo dpkg-reconfigure server-xorg and sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg, ....everytime I would enter these, system stated no such command, or command not found or words to that effect.

If, as Moebius believes my grub is OK, then as a result of trying to reconfigure Tweak Ubuntu, I must have caused some incompatibility that might be beyond us to ever figure out. Already I am embarrassed to have dragged this thing out to the extent it has become. Shame, because other than being to get compiz, I had my Ultimate Edition 2.2 customized just the way I wanted it and it was working so well. Grass is always greener, should have been willing to accept Ultimate Edition without compiz.

[Cell]

Another option an old grumpy man told me was this...

when you get to the bootloader(where you choose which kernel-you have to be quick here you only have a few seconds) hit Esc. Then e to edit and add one of these settings to the end of the kernel line i.e.VGA=769 save and boot!! Try the lowest one first and work your way up. This should load the Vesa video driver and give you a desktop.
640x480 800x600 1024x768 1280x1024 1600x1200
8 bits vga=769 vga=771 vga=773 vga=775 vga=796
16 bits vga=785 vga=788 vga=791 vga=794 vga=798
32 bits vga=786 vga=789 vga=792 vga=795 vga=799

[Moebius]

O.K. Lets try this.
Reboot PC - in Grub choose recovery (15)
Next menu, choose root
type the following:
sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf (capitals are important!!!)
You will now have a black screen with white writing on it. The writing you will see is actually your xorg.conf file. We will make some changes here. Using your arrow keys, scroll down until you see an entry which says:

Section "Device"
Identifier "configured video device"

Now move your cursor to the line under Identifier "........" and hit enter twice, it will move the rest of the text down the screen and create 2 new blank lines for you to enter the following: (dont forget to use your arrow keys to move back up to the first blank line you created)

Driver "vesa"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"

Once done, press the CTRL key and x on your keyboard to exit, then Y for yes, then hit enter.

Now restart your PC. Please tell me you have your desktop back....

[Cell]

Already I am embarrassed to have dragged this thing out to the extent it has become. Shame, because other than being to get compiz, I had my Ultimate Edition 2.2 customized just the way I wanted it and it was working so well. Grass is always greener, should have been willing to accept Ultimate Edition without compiz

No worries.

Your grub is fine if you don't get grub errors.I'm not sure what the app in ubuntu tweak is or does...never used it.Your problem is x is broken.Once we get it working again then we can start thinking about compiz.I did some research,and saved some pages for when you get to that point.

[Vincente]

O.K. Lets try this.
Reboot PC - in Grub choose recovery (15)
Next menu, choose root
type the following:
sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf (capitals are important!!!)
You will now have a black screen with white writing on it. The writing you will see is actually your xorg.conf file. We will make some changes here. Using your arrow keys, scroll down until you see an entry which says:

Section "Device"
Identifier "configured video device"

Now move your cursor to the line under Identifier "........" and hit enter twice, it will move the rest of the text down the screen and create 2 new blank lines for you to enter the following: (dont forget to use your arrow keys to move back up to the first blank line you created)

Driver "vesa"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"

Once done, press the CTRL key and x on your keyboard to exit, then Y for yes, then hit enter.

Now restart your PC. Please tell me you have your desktop back....

*********************************************************************************
no, it didn't work, I KNOW I did exactly as you have the above instruction laid out, at the end when I did CTRL & x and the Y and then enter, nothing happened, it went back to pulsating cursor after john-ZotacION login in. I didn't know what to do, so I shut down and restarted. The "failed to start xserver came right back"??? so I tried to do it again, exactly as you have directed. This time the Driver "vesa" and the BusID "PCI 1:0:0" were in place, but in the two lines I created, they are placed between Section "Device" and Identifier. Is that right? This time CTRL x did not work nor bring up the Y, N choice, just the same as last time, john-ZotacION login in with pulsating cursor. Did I screw this up.....I don't think so, I don't see how I could have done it any other way. If I was not working between computers, I could copy and send what it looks like, let me, I felt this time we would get it.....thanks

[Vincente]

O.K. Lets try this.
Reboot PC - in Grub choose recovery (15)
Next menu, choose root
type the following:
sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf (capitals are important!!!)
You will now have a black screen with white writing on it. The writing you will see is actually your xorg.conf file. We will make some changes here. Using your arrow keys, scroll down until you see an entry which says:

Section "Device"
Identifier "configured video device"

Now move your cursor to the line under Identifier "........" and hit enter twice, it will move the rest of the text down the screen and create 2 new blank lines for you to enter the following: (dont forget to use your arrow keys to move back up to the first blank line you created)

Driver "vesa"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"

Once done, press the CTRL key and x on your keyboard to exit, then Y for yes, then hit enter.

Now restart your PC. Please tell me you have your desktop back....

*********************************************************************************
no, it didn't work, I KNOW I did exactly as you have the above instruction laid out, at the end when I did CTRL & x and the Y and then enter, nothing happened, it went back to pulsating cursor after john-ZotacION login in. I didn't know what to do, so I shut down and restarted. The "failed to start xserver came right back"??? so I tried to do it again, exactly as you have directed. This time the Driver "vesa" and the BusID "PCI 1:0:0" were in place, but in the two lines I created, they are placed between Section "Device" and Identifier. Is that right? This time CTRL x did not work nor bring up the Y, N choice, just the same as last time, john-ZotacION login in with pulsating cursor. Did I screw this up.....I don't think so, I don't see how I could have done it any other way. If I was not working between computers, I could copy and send what it looks like, let me, I felt this time we would get it.....thanks

******************************************************************************************************************
OK, I went back deleted the two lines with Driver & BusID and re-did it. Now what I have is as follows:
Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured video device"
Driver "vesa"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

this time did the CTRL-x, Y for yes, but what came up is a wide white line with the following in black letters:
File Name to Write: /etc/X11/xorg.conf (then pulsating cursor mark) it seems to want something put in there, but I don't know what, this is what happened last time and I did a CTRL ALT Delete to reboot and get out. I will leave this running in the event you get back to me with an "exit strategy"

[Moebius]

This time the Driver "vesa" and the BusID "PCI 1:0:0" were in place, but in the two lines I created, they are placed between Section "Device" and Identifier. Is that right?

Hi Vincente,
Almost!
Driver "vesa" and BusID "PCI 1:0:0" must appear after Identifier. Try again, and use your up and down arrow keys to get you to the right spot, Delete the offending lines from the wrong location and retype them in a line beneath Identifier. Once done, Ctrl-x, then Y then enter. (and then restart the PC ). Just to explain, the reason you didn't get the same result the second time you opened xorg.conf with the CTRL-x bit was because you didn't make any changes - so it didn't ask to save anything.

Now lets see how this attempt goes - Good Luck!

[Moebius]

this time did the CTRL-x, Y for yes, but what came up is a wide white line with the following in black letters:
File Name to Write: /etc/X11/xorg.conf (then pulsating cursor mark) it seems to want something put in there, but I don't know what, this is what happened last time and I did a CTRL ALT Delete to reboot and get out. I will leave this running in the event you get back to me with an "exit strategy"

This is where you hit enter - enter to accept overwriting the file name.

[Admin-Amir]

O.K here is one more way to do it.

Press Alt-F2 and type

Code: Select all

gksudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

<sudo cp -i /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak> The -i option means it will prompt you if you are overwriting an existing file. You don't want to do that either by mistake. Then if you need to restore it, you just do:
<sudo cp -i /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak /etc/X11/xorg.conf> This will then ask you if you want to overwrite the existing xorg.conf, in which case you answer "y" since you are restoring the backup.

The quick answer… press Ctrl+Alt+F2 or similar to log into a TTY console, or type ‘init 3? into a root X terminal. If you haven’t already, log in as root and kill X or type ‘init 3? if you want to be heavy handed. Then run:

X -configure
mv ~/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf

xorg.config in two commands. Run the ‘init 5? command to get back to your GUI login (or kdm or gdm or startx, etc if you know what you are doing. Worst case remove the .conf and restart.)

If you are advanced enough to edit an xorg.conf, the above should be a cakewalk and you shouldn’t complain about it.

Regardless, you should investigate ‘xrandr’ which makes it simple to do runtime adjustments.

[Vincente]

This time the Driver "vesa" and the BusID "PCI 1:0:0" were in place, but in the two lines I created, they are placed between Section "Device" and Identifier. Is that right?

Hi Vincente,
Almost!
Driver "vesa" and BusID "PCI 1:0:0" must appear after Identifier. Try again, and use your up and down arrow keys to get you to the right spot, Delete the offending lines from the wrong location and retype them in a line beneath Identifier. Once done, Ctrl-x, then Y then enter. (and then restart the PC ). Just to explain, the reason you didn't get the same result the second time you opened xorg.conf with the CTRL-x bit was because you didn't make any changes - so it didn't ask to save anything.

Now lets see how this attempt goes - Good Luck!

Moebius, they ARE after Identifier, I did as you said, the line below Identifer, hit enter twice, got two blank lines between that and End Section, went back and filled them in, my example to you shows this. The line with Identifier has several horizontal spaces and then"Configured Video Device" but it moves as one line.
so again, here is what I have got:

Section Device
Identifier.................."Configured Video Device"
Vesa
BusID
End Section