Ubuntu / Linux Mint x-session/X11 no longer starts up - special key commands to diagnose problems while booting up


After installing some alternate window managers and playing around, Linux Mint 17 would freeze or get stuck during the bootup sequence. It looked scary: 

Anachron...
Starting Samba...
Stopping Samba...

Fortunately, there was nothing wrong with the Linux kernel or anything like that, just that the window manager wasn't able to display. These are some hotkeys that might help you get to the console shell.
  • F1 toggles between the Linux splash / loading icon and the console log
  • Ctrl-Alt-F1 through Ctrl-Alt-F6 bring up the terminals (tty1-tty6)
  • Ctrl-Alt-F7 is specifically for the GUI / X session
I found some messages like: "Your session only lasted less than 10 seconds", and the following in .xsession-errors: 
/etc/mdm/Xsession: Beginning session setup...
localuser:user being added to access control list
Script for none started at run_im.
Script for auto started at run_im.
Script for default started at run_im.
x-session-manager[2466]: CRITICAL: We failed, but the fail whale is dead. Sorry.... 

I renamed the user's ~/.config directory in order to reset all my user settings to see if that would help. Then, I ran the following:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure mdm

If you have multiple display managers installed, that command will let you designate the default one.

But ultimately in my case, the fix also needed to switch to the Xfce session from the mdm login screen. It's not exactly intuitive to try to modify the setting from there!


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