please help linux

[spriggsstyle]

I have an older Acer laptop running Linux and it seems to have crashed. I was installing updates and my husband shut it off prior to finishing. Now when I turn it on, it goes to a black screen and says my name-laptop login: when I enter my password, it says last login then the date welcome to ubuntu.com then my name-laptop: I worked with PC Doc in the chat room and he had me try several sudo commands but they didn't work so he told ,e to come here and post can anyone help? I was told that it could be an issue with the gdbm?

[Geek-9pm]

Provide some more detail.
Male and model of laptop?
Version of Linux.
Has this machine ever had major hardware issues?
Like frequent battery discharge? Hard drive errors?
Did it originally have Vista on it?
Is it in a dual boot configuration?

[SilentAssasin64]

I'm assuming the distribution is Ubuntu, since you briefly mentioned it in the first post.  Have you tried:

Code: [Select]

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -f
From the amount of information you have given, it seems that X, Gnome, or some other graphical application has been borked by a bad upgrade.  A little more information (see Geek-9pm's post) will help us narrow down what it could be.

[spriggsstyle]

Ok silentassasin64 and Geek-9pm I will give you as much info as I can. I forgot to mention that I'm not very computer literate so please be a little patient. I'd be very grateful if someone could just maybe help talk me through this because I can't finance a professional repair. SilentAssasin, yes I did try the sudo commands you mentioned but for some reason the internet connection wasn't being recognized so the commands failed.
Geek-9pm it's an Acer Aspire 5520The machine hasn't had any major hardware issues for as long as I've owned it, but it was used when I acquired it. It says Ubuntu  10.04.1 LTS when turned on. It does lose battery power very frequently so I mostly use it on AC power.Yes it did originally have Vista. With regards to a dual boot configuration, I can't answer that frankly because I have no idea what that means....again computer savvy...NOT lol:) Thanks...hope this helps

[Geek-9pm]

I guess you do not have the original CD used to install Ubuntu.
You will need the help of a friend that can get to the internet and has a CD burner.
Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS (Lucid Lynx)
can b downloaded from
http://releases.ubuntu.com/lucid/
The version you need is likely
PC (Intel x86) desktop CD

It is an ISO file.
Your friend should know this is used to make the  install  CD.
The Unbuntu install CD is used also to do a system repair. In fact, it will let you run the computer even without making any changes. Something you can not do in Windows.
I will leave it to the others to help you further. I have not used Ubuntu for several weeks and I forget things. 

[PCdoc]

On the computerhope chat, I asked her to try remove and re-install gdm using apt-get command. Also tried startx but was getting fatal errors. Tried reconfigure xorg, apt-get update to complete the updates becoz of which the problem occurred. Then it just clicked my mind...Internet might not be recognised in the shell :-P knew about the cd recovery.... But thought better to direct here coz it will take time for them to download cd first.

[SilentAssasin64]

If you're having issues with the net, post the results of a "sudo ifconfig" and try to do a ping and traceroute, like so:

Code: [Select]

ping www.google.com
traceroute www.google.com
Let us know if those show any errors of if they work properly.  If it's just an issue with misconfigured network settings it shouldn't be terribly difficult to correct.

[JJ 3000]

At the grub menu select recovery mode. If you don't see the grub menu when you start up tap the esc key as the computer is starting up.  Recovery mode is usually the second option down. When recovery mode loads up choose repair broken packages. It will check for problems with your programs and will give you options for fixing or upgrading them.

[spriggsstyle]

ok so I followed instruction with regards to burning the install disc but when I insert it and reboot the computer, it doesn't do anything except go back to the black screen where I input my password and then it says Kathy-laptop with a blinking cursor..what should I do now?

[SilentAssasin64]

Be sure your BIOS are set to boot from CD first.  To do this enter the CMOS setup - when you first turn on your computer there should be an option to "Enter Setup" by pushing a certain key on the keyboard.  Now the key varies from manufacturers, mine is Delete, others are F2.  Just press whatever one it tells you to.  Next, navigate through the options until you find the "Boot Order" or "Boot Priority" options.  Be sure that CD/DVD is first on the list (or at least before your hard drive).  Save and exit and see if that works.

[spriggsstyle]

It's beginning to look like that is going to do the trick Assassin!! Assuming that I made the correct choices when the disk was installing, I think that my problem will be solved! It asked me if I wanted to replace the Ubuntu version that I had already on there or simply add the newer version that I had burned on the disc and I chose to keep it and choose which one to use every time I log on. I hope that was ok I didn't want to erase anything until I asked first! Just a little leery of creating any more problems! I will definitely get back to you shortly and let u know for sure it's resolved. I can't thank you folks enough for your help I can't even begin to tell you how relieved I am to have my laptop back!! Can I ask one more question if I may?!? When using my laptop, and the version of linux/ubuntu that I had on it, when I would attempt to view any video content (other than youtube) I would get an error message saying that I need to update my flashplayer but when I hit the prompt to do so, it appears to have downloaded, but it won't install onto my computer. It would be great to be able to view video content on it again...does anyone have any suggestions?!? Thanks Again!!!

[spriggsstyle]

YAYEEEEEEEEE for me!!! Thanks to the help of a few members of this forum, my laptop is fixed, and I might even venture far enough to say that it's working better than it has since I got it!! I thank each, and every person who provided me with a suggestion whether they worked or not, it's still very kind of you to make an effort to help! If I may, I'd love to be able to get some advice on one more topic(other than the flashplayer dilemma I was having) That very well may have been alleviated when I updated my version of Linux. (I'll let y'all know as soon as I do)I'm just curious as to whether or not there might be some way that I could recover my bookmarks that I had before the problem arose? I had at least 100 of them and I'd be so stoked if I could retrieve them?!?! Thanks again to everyone and look forward to hearing from u soon!

[SilentAssasin64]

Good to hear.  Glad everything worked out fine.

The Flash issue is an easy fix, and you can go about installing it in one of two ways.

1) Get the libflashplayer.so (32 or 64 bit) from Adobe's website and copy it to the ~/.mozzila/plugins/ folder and the /lib/ or /lib64/ folder (for 32 bit and 64 bit respectively).

2) Issue the command "sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras", which will install Flash, Java, audio/video codecs, and some other things.

EDIT:  Didn't see the issue with bookmarks.  Not sure if there's a way to recover them now, but with the Ubuntu One Firefox plugin, you can sync your bookmarks across all your Ubuntu installations via the Ubuntu One cloud service.

[Geek-9pm]

Before using Ubuntu one, look over this information.
It gives a good overview of what it does, how  and why.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_One
Please note well that -
 Ubuntu One has been a cause of discontent
within the Ubuntu Community.