Linux Dummies 9th

Chapter 22: Ten Troubleshooting Tips
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Tip #9: “My GUI Is Hung,
and I’m Stuck!”
If you’re GUI isn’t working, try pressing Ctrl+Alt+Backspace. If this doesn’t do
the trick, then your system is in really bad shape! Try switching to a virtual
terminal by using Ctrl+Alt+F5. If this key combination also does nothing, you
need to reboot the machine.
Tip #10: “Help, My Machine
Hangs During Boot!”
When configuring a Linux machine, you may encounter problems with the
GRUB configuration file. In Fedora, this file is the /boot/grub/grub.conf
file. Ubuntu uses the /boot/grub/menu.lst file.
This file indicates the operating system or systems to which your system can
boot, and the file also contains Linux start-up settings. In order to fix your
computer, you can either try rebooting and selecting a different Linux boot
option from the menu, or you could refer to Chapter 3 for instructions on
using the rescue disk to boot into rescue mode. Consider this list of potential
solutions if the GRUB configuration file makes trouble:
✓ If you have altered or added hard drives, you may need to change the
boot line in the GRUB configuration file.
✓ If you haven’t made hardware changes, check to make sure that your
GRUB configuration file is referring to the correct location of the Linux
image. (The program code that loads and executes at runtime is located
in the /boot directory.)
✓ If the location under the /boot directory or the device for the root entry
is incorrect, your system can’t boot to Linux.
✓ If you’re working with a multiboot (dual-boot or more) operating-system
environment, be sure that your /etc/grub.conf file contains entries
for each of your operating systems.
Each operating system or Linux installation must have a separate entry.
✓ If your file contains entries to switch to a higher-resolution display and
you have boot problems, try reducing the video setting to simple VGA.