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Ubuntu version is 12.04.3. My computer is a Asus laptop, UL30Jt with a Nvidia graphics card. I previously had problems getting the graphics drivers to work, but I resolved that previously today. Afterwards I attempted to reboot and it worked fine, then I installed glfw and afterwards it won't start the gui after restarting.

I am not completely sure, but I think it was after I installed glfw, and it's dependencies xorg-dev and libglu1-mesa-dev.

Pressing ctrl + alt + f1 brings up the terminal where I can login.

I tried running for example glxinfo, which just prints:

Error: unable to open display.

I tried running glxinfo previously, when I was trying to figure out my driver problems nad it printed .. information of some kind. (Different from this error message, I dont remember what it was.)

I have been using Ubuntu for about 4 months, so I am not terribly experienced with different useful commands.

I have looked at this without finding anything useful.

startx gets a fatal error:

Fatal server error: no screens found

sudo service lightdm start or sudo start lightdm just takes me back to the blinking underscore, and pressing ctrl + shift + f1 takes me back to the terminal.

I tried running sudo apt-get install nvidia-current (which installed a bunch of stuff) and then rebooting which had no effect.

This also happened the last time I tried to install glfw, I don't know if it is the actual cause, but it has happened after attempting to install glfw twice in a row now. The last time I got the error message "could not write bytes broken pipe", however this time I don't get that. I fixed it by reinstalling Ubuntu, but it would be painful to have to do that again.

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did you try sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf? –  Avinash Raj Dec 12 '13 at 2:45
Now it skips over the flashing underscore and goes directly to the terminal, but still can't get any gui. –  Martin Dec 12 '13 at 10:54
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1 Answer

Run run the below commands in the virtual console,

sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf
sudo service lightdm restart
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if it won't works then try startx command. –  Avinash Raj Dec 12 '13 at 11:15
sudo service lightdm restart just takes me back to the blinking underscore. startx gives fatal server error: no screens found. –  Martin Dec 12 '13 at 11:47
run the first command and then restar your pc. –  Avinash Raj Dec 12 '13 at 12:21
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