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Software - Support => Other => Topic started by: m654321 on December 26, 2017, 06:40:34 AM

Title: Unusual desktop appearance
Post by: m654321 on December 26, 2017, 06:40:34 AM
Christmas Eve: I went to turn on laptop (1) - see signature - then selected LL from the grubscreen.

Everything booted as usual, and left the laptop downloading TV programmes using get_iplayer. When I returned to the laptop later to check on things, I got the shock of my life ...

- the LL manual icon on the display was changed into a red triangle, with "danger" written on it
- my other Desktop icons were white-ed out, and had a red cross in the middle of all of them.
- icons on the bottom right panel (WiFi, clock, volume control, etc) were missing and when I moved the mouse around
  a few more disappeared
- touchpad or mouse clicks produced no response to either the menu button or any other Desktop icons

Therefore, I had to resort to the power-off button to shutdown. Then the following happened the next day ...

Christmas Day: returned to laptop (1), power on, and all I got was a black screen with a blinking short white line, near the top left hand corner of the display. >:(

The only thing that has changed with our home network, over the last few days, is that my elder son & girlfriend are staying with us over the Christmas period and have brought their laptops with them, and of course they are running off our router for the internet connection. They don't have Linux - they both have Windows 10.  Is it possible that they have inadvertently introduced something malicious to our home network, particularly if they haven't taken the security measure of having dual account set-ups on Windows 10, i.e. an admin a/c and a daily user a/c? I'm suspicious ...
Title: Re: Unusual desktop appearance
Post by: Jerry on December 26, 2017, 06:58:33 AM
I've changed your title, it was far to alarmist and can give the wrong impression on search engines. You don't know what the issue it yet to label the title as such.
Title: Re: Unusual desktop appearance
Post by: ptyerman on December 26, 2017, 08:06:37 AM
Nasty! I would suggest running a virus/trojan scan from a live CD/USB first, obviously a CD would be better as it can't be written to but not everyone has a CD/DVD drive these days. Then follow up by a online scan by housecall or similar.
Title: Re: Unusual desktop appearance
Post by: trinidad on December 26, 2017, 08:08:10 AM
@m654321 Interesting... Windows 10 with the Edge as of at least build 1703 automatically searches for every Windows 10, 8, 7 device on a network and attempts to sync with them. An annoying feature to say the least, and it will find them even though they are Linux devices in some cases often when they are in hibernation mode. The phenomenon is much like dual boot systems where Linux is set to boot first and Windows is not shut completely down after use (left in hibernation mode) and then deprived of the automatic restart function attempts to install Windows updates to the Linux system on boot causing file system errors. The good news is all you have to do is run fsck manually on the Linux system and answer yes to the questions.

TC   
Title: Re: Unusual desktop appearance
Post by: m654321 on December 26, 2017, 08:10:42 AM
I've changed your title, it was far to alarmist and can give the wrong impression on search engines. You don't know what the issue it yet to label the title as such.

Thanks Jerry - yes I don't want to alarm anyone unecessarily
Title: Re: Unusual desktop appearance
Post by: m654321 on December 26, 2017, 08:11:36 AM
Nasty! I would suggest running a virus/trojan scan from a live CD/USB first, obviously a CD would be better as it can't be written to but not everyone has a CD/DVD drive these days. Then follow up by a online scan by housecall or similar.

Good idea - I'll try this later today or tomorrow - thanks - I'll post any outcomes
Title: Re: Unusual desktop appearance
Post by: m654321 on December 26, 2017, 08:14:43 AM
@m654321 The good news is all you have to do is run fsck manually on the Linux system and answer yes to the questions.

TC   

Many thanks TC.
So, do I simply run LL in the live environment, then type "sudo fsck" in the terminal ...??
Title: Re: Unusual desktop appearance
Post by: trinidad on December 26, 2017, 08:17:40 AM
Ubuntu rescue disk will work.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair)

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2334766

TC
Title: Re: Unusual desktop appearance
Post by: m654321 on December 29, 2017, 09:36:11 AM
@m654321The good news is all you have to do is run fsck manually on the Linux system and answer yes to the questions.
TC   

I loaded an Ubuntu 16.04 DVD, and ran sudo fsck from the live environment, on the triple-boot SSD setup on laptop (1), see signature below. Just to give a more complete picture, the partitioning of /dev/sda is as follows:

sda1 ntfs system reserved     flag = boot
sda2 ntfs windows 7
sda3 extended
sda5 ext4 PCLOS installed as root only
sda6 ext4 LL /root
sda7 ext4 LL /home

I ran the fsck command for both LL partitions, using the "automatic yes to all" setting: i.e. sudo fsck -y /dev/sda6 and sudo fsck -y /dev/sda7

However, as Christmas Day (post #1), the system still wont boot to a grub screen: I still have a black screen with short flashing white line flashing near top left corner of display.

So I reboot to the Ubuntu live disk, and attempt to reinstate the grubscreen, and put LL at the top of the grublist using:
Code: [Select]
sudo mount /dev/sda6 /mnt
sudo grub-install --boot-directory=/mnt/boot /dev/sda


This ran fine without error, however, still no luck with the subsequent reboot, i.e. black screen again :(

Should I run fsck on /dev/sda1 and for the PCLOS partitions too ..?

I get the feeling the system is totally screwed, and I might need to reinstall LL as root only, and just hope my configuration files stored in /sda7 haven't been harmed. 


What's your opinion?
Title: Re: Unusual desktop appearance
Post by: trinidad on December 30, 2017, 10:37:41 AM
A couple questions first.
1) Which system was originally set to boot first?
2) Will any of the systems still boot?

A comment:
I'm sure the systems are fine. It's just a boot problem which we will eventually figure out.

TC
Title: Re: Unusual desktop appearance
Post by: m654321 on December 30, 2017, 10:41:31 AM
A couple questions first.
1) Which system was originally set to boot first?
2) Will any of the systems still boot?
A comment:
I'm sure the systems are fine. It's just a boot problem which we will eventually figure out.

Answers:
1) LL3.6
2) none

Thanks TC. I've wiped the laptop and started reinstalling the OSes on SSD1, but this time I've omitted Win7 - only LL & PCLOS this time - and /home on SSD2.
Thanks for your help.

TC