[Bio-Linux] BioLinux 8 - Hangs after Login

[Tim Booth]

Hi Christopher,

I've seen a similar situation twice recently due to packages being
inadvertently removed from the system.  In the first case the user had
wanted to install a Deb package file directly and got the message "this
conflicts with existing packages - do you want to remove the conflicting
packages?"  So they did, and the desktop stopped working because they
had removed essential desktop packages.

In the second case, the user had an NVidia graphics card on their
physical machine so they figured they would install the NVidia
accelerated drivers under Linux to take advantage of it.  Not only does
this not work, but unfortunately the NVidia drivers break the VirtualBox
drivers and then can't be removed without directly restoring some system
files.  This one was quite tricky to fix.

Do you think you might have done anything like this on your own VM?

The thing to appreciate is that the GUI on Linux is just a regular
application that happens to stick itself to the side of the screen.  You
can try running it from the terminal by typing "unity" and see what it
says - any informative errors?  Ensure that the ubuntu-desktop package
is still on your system as this meta-package depends on all the crucial
desktop components like unity.

Cheers,

TIM

On Tue, 2015-01-06 at 19:36 +0000, Dubay, Christopher J wrote:
> On my first booting-up of BioLinux this year (2015), in a VMware under
> Windows 7 environment that had been working well, I was greeted with a
> new login screen image (green berries). Nice.
> 
> I logged in, and never get to a working GUI (the same thing happens
> for the Guest account), I get a GUI window with no menus/icons (just
> green berries). I can Alt+Ctrl+F1 to a terminal, but cannot restart
> the GUI ('sudo service lightdm restart' just returns me to the GUI
> window with no menus/icons as before).
> 
> I tried an 'sudo apt-get update', no joy. I am willing to try a
> reinstall, however I wanted to check with the community to see if this
> a Ubuntu or BioLinux problem. Seeing the login desktop image change
> just made me wonder; and I have never had a Ubuntu VM act this way.
> 
> Has anyone else ever seen this behavior?
> 
> Thanks, and Happy New Year...
> 
> Christopher
> 
> 
> Christopher Dubay, PhD
> Biomedical Informatics Program Manager
> Laboratory of Molecular and Tumor Immunology
> Earle A. Chiles Research Institute
> Providence Cancer Center
> 4805 NE Glisan St.- 2N57
> Portland, OR 97213  USA
> T: (503) 215-7981
> F: (503) 215-6841
> 
> christopher.dubay at providence.org
> 
> ________________________________
> 
> This message is intended for the sole use of the addressee, and may contain information that is privileged, confidential and exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the addressee you are hereby notified that you may not use, copy, disclose, or distribute to anyone the message or any information contained in the message. If you have received this message in error, please immediately advise the sender by reply email and delete this message.
> _______________________________________________
> Bio-Linux mailing list
> Bio-Linux at nebclists.nerc.ac.uk
> http://nebclists.nerc.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/bio-linux

-- 
Tim Booth <tbooth at ceh.ac.uk>
NERC Environmental Bioinformatics Centre 

Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
Maclean Bldg, Benson Lane
Crowmarsh Gifford
Wallingford, England
OX10 8BB 

http://nebc.nerc.ac.uk
+44 1491 69 2705