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I have managed to break my X server, and am trying to attempt the solution offered in this page. I only have one user on the system, but I have no idea what its group name is, which means I can't execute the solution offered on the page.

Pressing Ctrl+Alt+F(x) just brings up a flashing white cursor, but I can't type anything. I only have Ctrl+Alt+F7 at my disposal, but unable to login and bring up a prompt with Ctrl+Alt+T.

The only access I have to a shell of any description seems to be by booting into recovery mode and dropping to the shell. However, I then don't get any response from the shell when I type users (as suggested by this page as a way to find out my groupname).

A valid answer to this question would either:

a) Allow me to find out the groupname so that I can execute the sudo chown username:groupname .Xauthority command, or

b) Provide an alternative way to fix the XServer issue, which sounds very similar to the one here.

Community
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CaptainProg
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2 Answers2

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I thought usually when creating a new user (during installation too), Ubuntu creates a usergroup with exactly the same name as the username. So for example my username is bytecommander and therefore I'm also (the only) member of the group bytecommander.

I hope this helps you. Please don't forget to accept the best answer to your problem or to give votes to improve the answerer's reputation (and yours, by accepting)...

Byte Commander
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In the event that you can't get a working shell from your system, you may need to boot into the installation media (CD, USB) & get a terminal from there.

If you mount your /home drive - you can do this from the desktop - then you can open a terminal, and get typing:

sudo -i mount # This will show your drive as /dev/sda1 or similar cd /media/ubuntu/sda1/home/you/ # or whatever it was, to get to your home directory.. chown you:you .Xauthority

In fact taking ownership of the whole directory might be useful, as chown -R you:you *

reboot

remove CD etc, & we're done. Unless I'm right & there's more :) - if you can't get a shell on your system there may well be.

Mark Williams
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