[ubuntu] Loading to blank screen...

[Rawns]

I've barely had any experience with Linux so apologies if I sound a bit 'noobish' on this front. From recommendations of other people, I've decided to replace Win 7 and trial Ubuntu as my media centre O/S (as well as learning new skills on the way!). Before diving straight in there, I installed 12.04 into a VirtualBox VM and have been playing around and trying to learn the basics before going 'live'. I managed to install a TS3 server and get XBMC running on the VM's which are the two must-have apps and I was finally happy with installing it on my media centre.

 

I used the Windows Installer and installed Ubuntu to a new partition so have Duel boot available. After booting into Ubuntu, it proceeded to download updates and drivers for the GPU. All installed fine, so I rebooted. Ubuntu now loads up on the media centre but all I get is the background wallpaper and a working mouse cursor. I can right click the desktop and create folders, files etc, but I have no HUD, no menu bar along the top so can't really do anything - effectively, no 'Explorer'. If I hit the power button, I get the prompt to log off, reboot, suspend etc but all options result in just the wallpaper when it boots again. Any suggestions on what to try to get it working would be welcome.

[twin--turbo]

Set the user to use the classic desktop rather than Unity. That would be my first step.

 

You can test this on the logon page by selectin the classic desktop.

 

Rob

[jinnantonnixx]

Unity is great! Having irrefutably established that fact, let's move on to the problem.

 

Ctrl-Alt-T to get a terminal window

 

Type this command;

 

unity --reset

 

Don't run it with sudo, it should be run au naturale as the user.

 

 

(Seriously, Unity might seem a bit new and strange, but once used to it there's no going back to the old fashioned clunky classic menus. This seems a huge step backwards to me.)

Edited June 29, 2012 by jinnantonnixx

[Rawns]

Thanks for the help guys, appreciated.

 

I'll give these suggestions a go later.

[jinnantonnixx]

As an aside, XBMC make their own live image which you can use to install to your computer. This might be an easier route if all you want is an XMBC server.

 

 

XBMCUbuntu

[twin--turbo]

Which reminds me, I need to update MythTV....

 

Rob

[Rawns]

Unity is great! Having irrefutably established that fact, let's move on to the problem.

 

Ctrl-Alt-T to get a terminal window

 

Type this command;

 

unity --reset

 

Don't run it with sudo, it should be run au naturale as the user.

 

 

(Seriously, Unity might seem a bit new and strange, but once used to it there's no going back to the old fashioned clunky classic menus. This seems a huge step backwards to me.)

 

Cracking stuff! Worked a treat. I do like Unity, very slick, but then I don't know any different!