How recover GUI after attemps to kill Muon Updater?; +AMD APU text garbage aspect

[pwrcul]

Is there a way in Kubuntu 14.04, 64 bit to recover my desktop?

Last night Muon Update Mgr complained about waiting for a profile. I let it run all night.
Today I tried to cancel, then close Muon Update Mgr. No way to do that.
I tried to Restart or Shut Down, but Muon blocks that.
(If I would have googled or remembered I could have killed the Muon process with KSysGuard....)

But instead I did Ctrl-Alt-F1 and then blindly (due to issues of AMD APU text handling so what I see are bizarre renditions for what are character codes) I entered my user name and password, then entered "sudo shutdown -hP now" and my password
Muon blocks that as well.
I used the power button to get a fresh shot at Grub2, but I am an unskilled klutz there and got nowhere
I tried startx to no avail.

Any ideas?

[Teunis]

In case you do get to a terminal and are able to log in you can try to finish this botched update.

Run:

sudo apt-get update

Next:

sudo apt-get dist-ugrade

If one (especially the last one) complains you can try to fix the present update with:

sudo dpkg --configure -a

There are times a few repeats finalises the fix.

[pwrcul]

thanks, Teunis,

Using the regular startup that gets me the weird characters, I did the sequence of commands several times.
the update gets the biggest stream of response.
Then I tried sudo /etc/init.d/kdm restart with no success

I used power key to restart and tried recovery mode with most recent kernel.
In that mode the characters are rendered in ASCII so I could see what was going on.
It tells me login: initct1: event failed.
I logged in with name and password.
Again update got the most activity, upgrade a little, and configure not so much.

I tried /etc/init.d/kdm restart with no success,
Then I tried startx and got a clear screen to a blank screen, no prompts, etc.

I gambled on a regular start and got weird characters. That's where I am now.

Any more ideas?

(I checked ps and it's not showing much, just tty and bash; so I am not sure when muon kicks in, etc.)

[sithlord48]

14.04 doesn't use kdm by default. By Default 14.04 uses lightdm (try sudo /etc/init.d/lighdm (re)start)
before you try to get into a gui you should try to fix your packages this maybe best done from the recovery mode (hold shift while booting to select it )


https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...roken+packages

[pwrcul]

sithlord48,

Thanks.
I got your message just after I had gone into
1. etc/init.d and found lightdm but no kdm, and
2. tried lightdm start It cleared the screen but then nothing.

Before that, using the recovery mode I ran the update and found no errors and similarly with the dist-upgrade

I will go back and, following the link on broken packages you gave above, run the kill and the configure.

[pwrcul]

When I ran the kill and configure there was nothing to kill and configure did nothing new.

I tried two other things.

1. I tried to learn more about initctl: event failed message I get when I use recover mode and try to start up by logging in.
I did not find anything precisely about my situation or more information on what the inltct1 is, but I did find cases with failure to get the right Nvidia driver.
Could I have a problem with the driver for my AMD APU video driver. If so, any suggestions on proceeding further?

2. Inadvertently, then purposely, I did the normal startup but with my KVM switch set to a different system (where I am doing the forum posts).
I got a GUI, a "default" one with very low resolution, 640 x 480 with no option to change with System Settings.

So I think that also points to a driver issue, but I don't know if that is correct and if so, how to address it.

Ideas?

[pwrcul]

Do folks agree that I likely have a driver issue with the AMD APU driver?

I did lspci -vvnn | grep VGA and found my APU has a Radeon HD7660D on the APU.
I checked muon package manager in my default GUI.
I do have the fglrx proprietary AMD binary driver installed along with some support files.

Do you think what might work is to use the muon package manager to uninstall the fglrx driver, reboot and then reinstall it?

(There are two things that make me reluctant to "nuke and pave" at this point.
A key one is that though I do have a separate home directory, it is also on a separate HDD separate from the system SSD.
Another is I would like to learn how to cope with this kind of problem as I climb the learning curve as a linux and KDE user.
Meanwhile, I will be copying files to a portable drive just in case.)

Thanks in advance.

[NoWorries]

I have a desktop with the Radeon HD6310 graphics card. It has 16.04 installed on it and the video drivers that I have installed for it to work properly are in the graphic below:



I realize that your card is a more recent one and I am using a different distribution. If you decide to install the packages that I have and it breaks your system, you can resort to the command line and remove them.

[pwrcul]

Thanks NoWorries and all,

My list of fglrx related files are similar.

My prior apt-get update etc. get no issues and I no longer have muon taking over.

I now have all my files, including hidden files, copied from my home directory onto a portable drive.
I also located my 14.04 DVD.

Here's my plan.
I will take a break, then shut down my default GUI regular login session and boot into recovery mode and choose to fix files.
After that I will try a regular boot if anything was fixed. Hopefully I have a consistent system at that point.

Otherwise, using the default GUI I will use muon package manager to uninstall the fglrx AMD binary driver and supporting files, then reinstall it.
If my system still does not boot into the regular GUI, I will load the 14.04 DVD and boot from it and choose the repair option.
Then we will see.

If you have any further tips and warnings, I will welcome them.

[pwrcul]

Well, here's an update:

Removing the proprietary AMD drivers, fglrx etc., let my system boot with normal size windows, characters, etc.
But einstalling fglrx derailed normal boot, so it was not sufficient. So it needed more. What else might be broken....?

Using recover mode file repair did not gain anything.

I decided to get the latest 14.04 which since Feb. 2016 is 14.04.4.
I downloaded and burned a DVD and booted from it.
Unfortunately, there is no repair option (I am not sure where I got the idea), only try it or install.
I opted eventually to install, so I nuked my old 14:04.

My old home directory is on the separate HDD still.

What I think I will do is expand the space on the SSD for Kubuntu, re-install again and add a separate home partition there (to simplify the setup) and then copy over the files from the HDD to the new /home.
(An example I googled is here for Ubuntu: http://www.howtogeek.com/116742/how-...alling-ubuntu/ )

If you know a way you would prefer to recommend, I will welcome it.

I