I always log in at run level 3, usually to start X. (startxfce4) On my home puter, I have to recompile an nvidea module every time I upgrade the kernel. It seems likely that an Ubuntu upgrade would replace your kernel. That might be what your elusive screen is telling you, and it might not. Can't give you my notes on it, they are at home, I'm not. Tail dmesg right after it happens, look at /var/log/Xorg* On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 8:28 AM, Robert P. J. Day <rpjday [ at ] crashcourse [ dot ] ca>wrote: > On Wed, 18 Sep 2013, Jean-François Bilodeau wrote: > > > I'm running Mint here, which is an Ubuntu derivative, and performed not > > one, not two but five dist-upgrade of the same installation. Some were > > smoother than others, but for the most part, they worked. > > > > The same harddisk (and the installating) has been in four different > > physical system (including a MacBook Pro), and worked out of the > > box--first boot--everytime. I love Linux. :D > > well, i did the release upgrade, it seemed to go smoothly, i > rebooted, got the GNOME login screen with "13.04" at the bottom, but > ... every time i try to log in, i get a brief text screen so quickly i > can't read it, then i get dumped back to the login screen. > > i have no problem logging in on a text console, and everything there > seems to work fine -- that's what i'm logged in on right now, so > networking clearly works, e-mail works, everything seems fine, except > for trying to log in to the graphical desktop. > > this laptop has an nvidia graphics card, and i'm using the nouveau > kernel module, which is what i was using before, so i'm not sure it's > a graphics driver issue. not sure what log file i want to check for > diagnostics, so i'm open to suggestions. > > i'm sure it's something simple since the graphical login screen > comes up nicely, it's just the graphical login process itself that > somehow fails and dumps me back to the login. > > rday > > -- > > ======================================================================== > Robert P. J. Day Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA > http://crashcourse.ca > > Twitter: http://twitter.com/rpjday > LinkedIn: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday > ======================================================================== > _______________________________________________ > Linux mailing list > Linux [ at ] lists [ dot ] oclug [ dot ] on [ dot ] ca > http://oclug.on.ca/mailman/listinfo/linux > -- *Morality is doing what is right regardless of what you are told. * *Religion is doing what you are told, regardless of what is right. * * *