Ubuntu 9.10 Broke My Desktop

[Mem]

I had Kubuntu 9.10 on before(working great) but decided to try Ubuntu 9.10 so did a clean install of Ubuntu 9.10 with no other OS(no dual booting or anything like that),anyway got the recommended Ubuntu 9.10 updates online after installation (no third party software installed by me) and things went pear shape shortly after that ,became very slow while opening stuff/browsing etc... so I closed my PC down and started it up later and now all I have is a mouse cursor and famous brown ubuntu desktop with nothing else, not even anything to click on,even tried rebooting again same problem.

I'm not too worried because its my Linux play around PC(no.3 backup).
The big question is do I wait until nextweek and install the new OpenSuse version(8 days to go)or go back to Kubuntu,maybe even wait for Linux Mint 8, lastly I can reinstall Ubuntu and see if the same thing happens again,its hard deciding but it makes Linux fun .

I must say this is the first time Linux OS has broke my PC,guess nothing is foolproof.

Update: going to try a clean reinstall,be interesting to see what happens.

 

[xSauronx]

A- you dont have to install ubuntu and its derivatives separately, ubuntu, kubuntu, xubuntu and i think edubuntu use the same base system and just change the Desktop Environment (DE)

9.10 has some software installation updates, but im not familiar with them. You can use synaptic if its still there, or the cli and aptitude to install "kubuntu-dekstop" and "ubuntu-destkop" iirc

second, you can probably use alt+f2 to get a run prompt to start things...but im on my xp netbook right now so the command to start a window manager escapes me (maybe metacity -- replace?) but you could just as easily run xterm, then sudo aptitude reinstall ubuntu-desktop and see if that sorts things out.

/guessing, more or less

 

[Mem]

A- you dont have to install ubuntu and its derivatives separately, ubuntu, kubuntu, xubuntu and i think edubuntu use the same base system and just change the Desktop Environment (DE)

9.10 has some software installation updates, but im not familiar with them. You can use synaptic if its still there, or the cli and aptitude to install "kubuntu-dekstop" and "ubuntu-destkop" iirc

second, you can probably use alt+f2 to get a run prompt to start things...but im on my xp netbook right now so the command to start a window manager escapes me (maybe metacity -- replace?) but you could just as easily run xterm, then sudo aptitude reinstall ubuntu-desktop and see if that sorts things out.

/guessing, more or less

Thanks for the reply but I know about that ,but like to do things the old fashioned way,not like Linux takes ages to reinstall,anyway reinstalled with all the updates and all seems fine now(typing this post on my Ubuntu PC),only thing I can think of that may have caused an issue before was when I moved the taskbar to the bottom(maybe I should of rebooted first right after all the updates).

Anyway all seems fine now,I 'll probably dual boot nextweek with the new OpenSuse version.

 

[Fox5]

Generally, you should install the critical updates for ubuntu and reboot after a fresh install. Seems to have less issues that way.

Just curious though, what graphics card is in your desktop? I found the nvidia drivers were pretty buggy with 9.10, and ended up adding a PPA by some dude named sevenmachines to install a newer version.

 

[Mem]

Generally, you should install the critical updates for ubuntu and reboot after a fresh install. Seems to have less issues that way.

Just curious though, what graphics card is in your desktop? I found the nvidia drivers were pretty buggy with 9.10, and ended up adding a PPA by some dude named sevenmachines to install a newer version.

It's an old ATi 9700 card which has been fine in various Linux operating systems ie Kubuntu,Linux Mint etc...I just use the default OS ones.

 

[Fox5]

It's an old ATi 9700 card which has been fine in various Linux operating systems ie Kubuntu,Linux Mint etc...I just use the default OS ones.

I believe 9.04 still would have had support in ati's fglrx (and would have automatically installed it) for the 9700, but since then ati's dropped support for older cards and you could have been switched over to the open source driver.