I am using Gnome-Ubuntu desktop 14.04. I have a Intel i7 processor, 6g ram, and over 2.5t of disk space. I am loading the Gnome-Shell by DVD. I am current using Windows XP because I cannot launch the Gnome gui.
I have three users on my computer, all of which are me. Two are robert and geek. Robert is the identity that does serious work. Geek is the identity that plays.
Beginning on or about 9/22/14, I started having trouble launching the gui for geek. I logged in, used the correct password and the gui started to load. After a considerable time, I would end up at the login page. This has continued to happen since the 22nd.
I could continue to successfully login with the robert identity, until just now. Once in I could login geek on terminal. Geek could then used the sudo process to act as root, etc. I do not appear to have a login problem.
I have also opened a tty at the login menu. I then login successfully as geek. I can use the tty as geek, including th sudo procedure. What I cannot do is open the gui for geek.
I have made various attempts to solve this problem using answers to related questions on this page and others. In my last attempt, I logged in as robert, opened the terminal, and attempted to use the command startx, as indicated in the man pages to start the gui. Now I cannot bring the gui up for robert either.
In the auth. log, I found that geek logged in, session started, then suddenly the session was closed by the system. About the same time there were references to unsuccessfully attempt to connect an apparent X system file in /tmp to X system files in /etc. That may be the problem, but there is no further explanation in the log. I would attach the relevant portions the Auth. Log. but I can no longer access them. I cannot see the log from Windows, and I cannot secure them as robert or geek.
How do I solve this problem? How do I get the gui started once logged on? How can I successfully start the gui from the terminal or tty?
How can I debug the effected process? How can I find where the processing is going wrong?
Is there a program I can run to search for and fix the errors?
What documentation should I consult, and where from, so I can figure out how to fix the problem?
Thanks