Member Avatar for Xozz

When I boot into linux (Ubuntu, I'm not sure which version, a recent one) I get this error:

"
Oh no! Something has gone wrong.
A problem has occurred and the system can't recover. Please contact a system administrator.
"

I understand that I should boot from a DVD or USB-stick. But that doesn't work so well on this machine, it's an old one. Let me say, I'm going to try all that soon.

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Dani AI

Generated

This looks like a graphical-session (GNOME) crash while the system itself boots. With a working text shell already available (as noted by and confirmed by ), the most efficient approach is to collect a few simple diagnostics, repair broken packages, and isolate whether the problem is system-wide or limited to the user profile.

Useful diagnostics from the tty:

# check free space (full root often breaks the session)
df -h /

# recent system errors and GNOME-specific messages
sudo journalctl -b -p err --no-pager
sudo journalctl -b _COMM=gnome-shell

# display-manager status
systemctl status display-manager

Common non-destructive repairs and isolation steps:

# fix package/db state
sudo dpkg --configure -a
sudo apt --fix-broken install
sudo apt update

# reinstall desktop components (meta-package name may vary by release)
sudo apt install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop gnome-shell gdm3

# move per-user settings to force a clean session
mv ~/.config/dconf/user ~/.config/dconf/user.bak

# quick test account to see if the issue is user-specific
sudo adduser recoverytest
sudo usermod -aG sudo recoverytest

If GRUB recovery mode is needed, enable networking there, remount root read-write with mount -o remount,rw / and run the same apt/dpkg commands. As a pragmatic fallback, installing a lightweight desktop (for example xfce4) can restore a usable GUI while troubleshooting GNOME. Always back up important data first (for example tar czvf /tmp/home-backup.tgz /home/<user>) and avoid deleting system files blindly. If disk errors appear in dmesg or smartctl, priority should be data preservation before attempting further repairs.

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Member Avatar for Xozz

Booting from USB-stick doesn't work and DVD-player doesn't boot at all

Member Avatar for Schol-R-LEA

You've checked the boot order in the BIOS, correct?
Speaking of which, since you mentioned that this is an older system: is it UEFI, or Legacy BIOS?
Also, how did you install Ubuntu originally (assuming it was installed already and that the error message is from the HDD boot)?
Did the error message include any other details beyond the message you already posted?

EDIT: Doing a quick search on the error message, it looks to be a Gnome error rather than a Linux one (which I was wondering about, it was far too casual a message for the Linux kernel). If so, it should be possible to use Ctl-Alt-F2 to get to a shell. You should be able to remove and reinstall Gnome itself in that case.

Edited by Schol-R-LEA
Member Avatar for Xozz

You're right, I can get into the shell. Nice learning objective to reinstall Gnome I guess :) Thanks!

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