You select your username, type your password, hitEnter,and… nothing.
Unfortunately, this kind of experience is more common than you might think with Ubuntu.
To do this, boot your system normally and wait for the login screen to appear.
From the login screen, pressCtrl + Alt + F3.
Some laptops use the function keys for setting screen brightness or sound volume.
Dell laptops, for example, have a key labeledFn.
On these machines, you oughta pressFn + Ctrl + Alt + F3simultaneously.
Pressing this key combination will take you to a terminal screen with a login prompt.
you’re free to enter commands here just as you would in the terminal app from your desktop.
They exist as hidden files in your home directory.
This file may not exist on your system.
If there’s no file with the name .Xauthority, skip to the next suggestion.
If the.Xauthorityfile does exist, look at the owner and group for the file.
These two attributes appear to the left of the file name and size.
In the image above, they are highlighted and both set to root.
If this file is on your system and shows as owned by root, this will be your problem.
You should own the file, not the root user.
Be sure to enter the command exactly as shown.
Note the colon between the usernames, the dot at the beginning of the filename, and the capitalX.
When done, list the directory again, and the file owner should now be your username.
If you see this file, check its owner as well.
This directory holds all temporary files and can wreak havoc when system processes cant get to their files.
Here, you want to look at the string of letters in the leftmost column of the directory listing.
They represent the permissions for the directory.
In the case of /tmp, that string of letters should be preciselydrwxrwxrwt.
Your system will do strange things when it cant write to the hard drive.
If the free space is less than three or four gigabytes, you should look for files to delete.
Your downloads directory is probably a good place to start.
You should be extremely careful when removing files outside your home directory or modifying disk partitions.
Mistakes could mean losing all of your data.
It may take some time to complete, but you only need to enter a few commands.
Although going through this experience is not pleasant for anyone, an important lesson must be learned.
Things like this are precisely why making regular backups of your Linux system is essential.
Sometimes there is no other solution than formatting your drive and starting over.
It will be painful if you find yourself in that situation without a backup.
