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I made the mistake of upgrading from ubuntu 18 LTS to 20.04 LTS not knowing there are (login) issues with 20.04.

My computer has an

  • AMD GPU
  • dual boot with windows
  • ~5 gigabytes of space left available on the ubuntu partition

I have had past history with issues with lightdm, desktop environments and logging in. However prior to upgrading I had a relatively functioning system.

When I initially upgraded there was a failure due to lack of diskspace. I had boot issues and ran boot repair from a 20.04 LTS live disk (on a USB stick). ubuntu paste of boot repair Boot seem repaired fine, as I can make it to the login screen now.

The current state and things I can do

  • running df -h notes my $HOME directory has 5gb of space (94% in use)
  • enter recovery mode from GRUB
  • enter TTY3 on login screen if I'm quick enough
  • try to use the login screen, but the login screen freezes within a few seconds and won't accept keyboard or mouse inputs
  • if I manage to enter login credentials quickly enough at the login screen, I am sent to a black screen
  • run startx from TTY3 which then puts me into a black screen where I can right click to get a menu, open a terminal but the GUI is only partially working

Some of the things I've tried, that didn't work to fix it

  • installing lightdm from the terminal and switching to that from gdm3
  • tried updating AMD GPU drivers (method 2 here: https://linuxconfig.org/amd-radeon-ubuntu-20-04-driver-installation sudo add-apt-repository ppa:oibaf/graphics-drivers followed by sudo apt update && sudo apt -y upgrade
  • tried changing the desktop environment? sudo update-alternatives --config x-session-manager , however this appears to perhaps not change the setting in the bottom right of the GUI login screen? I have not managed to persist changing that setting manually in the GUI , as the computer freezes before I can restart the computer after changing this setting and remains stuck on Ubuntu regardless of what changing sudo update-alternatives --config x-session-manager or changing it in the GUI login screen before the computer freezes.
  • sudo apt autoremove (there is nothing to remove from this command at TTY3 or doing the equivalent from recovery mode I believe)
  • free -m from TTY3 says there is free space in mem and swap

From TTY 3

sudo mv ~/.Xauthority ~/.Xauthority.backup sudo service lightdm restart

Gets me to a login screen but once I try to login it breaks

What additional pieces of diagnostic information can I gather and what can I do to fix this?

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  • @guiverc yes 20.04 LTS , thank you for clarifying. I have tried checking $HOME's space by running df -h , if this was a correct way to do it, there is space
    – user1821961
    Apr 6, 2021 at 3:53

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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As you are able to access TTY3 you could try to uninstall some software you do not need. You can start with:

sudo apt autoremove

You can also try "ncdu" CLI utility to find what is taking your space. Just run it from / directory. Maybe you find some old backups or files you do not need. Here more on how to use ncdu.

What is your RAM usage when you log in?

free -m

I once tried to boot with Graphical environment into RAM and because of its size, it was too slow and eventually, it got stuck...

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  • Updated my question, nothing to autoremove (I believe I ran that in the past anyway) and free -m notes there should be plenty of ram available (7067), let me know if you have any other recommendations, thanks
    – user1821961
    Apr 6, 2021 at 21:35
  • Can you identify what is using your cpu? ps aux --sort=-pcpu | head
    – Daniel Vavrik
    Apr 7, 2021 at 6:38
  • Do you get some hints from: journalctl | grep error | tail -n 20? Can you run sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade?
    – Daniel Vavrik
    Apr 7, 2021 at 6:57
  • I also found this link
    – Daniel Vavrik
    Apr 7, 2021 at 7:05
  • Tried those upgrade commands before, I'm in a different state of error now after running some recovery mode actions askubuntu.com/questions/1330800/…
    – user1821961
    Apr 11, 2021 at 23:28

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