Session starts on blank desktop with unsupported drivers

[Fabián Rodríguez]

Binary package hint: unity

When starting Ubuntu Netbook edition (Maverick Beta, 64-bit), it seems it expects drivers for desktop effects to be present. On an nvidia system running the default nouveau drivers as expected when first installing, this results on blank desktop.

Ctrl-Alt-Del shows the shudown dialog and CTRL-L locks the screen as expected, so Metacity should be loaded in such cases.

Workaround:

1) Press ctrl-atl-F1 to gain access to a console
2) Invoke metacity:
metacity &
3) Start gnome-panel:
gnome-panel &
4) Go back to the desktop with Ctrl-Alt-F7
5) Install the appropriate/missing drivers
6) Reboot

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: unity 0.2.32-0ubuntu4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-19.28-generic 2.6.35.3
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-19-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Fri Sep 3 14:11:09 2010
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-Netbook 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Beta i386 (20100902.1)
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: unity

[Didier Roche-Tolomelli (didrocks)]

unity now tells if you can't run it at startup and will logout you nicely.

There is also a new mesa waiting for approval to get wider hardware support.

[Pandelis Xanthopoulos (pxanth)]

Updated to UNR 10.10RC (from UNR 10.04) on my Asus EEEpc 1000H yesterday. I still get a blank desktop.

Invoking metacity returns "cannot start X".