I finally succeeded.
The good clue was this error from the unity --debug
command I mentionned:
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/unity/compiz-config-profile-setter: error while loading shared libraries: libprotobuf.so.10: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Even if I deactivated the nextgis PPA, libprotobuf10
was referenced as version 3.5.x by apt-cache policy
, that meant it was the version packages from this PPA. But apt-cache policy
has no '500' code and no associated PPA URL as the nextgis PPA from where the version 3.5.x came was removed!
And a $ find /usr -iname "*libprotobuf.so*"
only gave me:
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libprotobuf.so.15
And the apt-get install --reinstall libprotobuf10
command didn't work, as it was not able to download (downgrade to) the previous official 3.0.x version from the official repositories!
What I did:
So, I removed it (libprotobuf10
) with apt-get
:
sudo apt-get remove libprotobuf10
and this command wanted to remove all these packages as well:
compiz compiz-gnome evolution-data-server gdm3 gnome-online-accounts gnome-shell gnome-shell-extension-dash-to-panel gnome-shell-extensions gnome-todo libcompizconfig0 libebook-1.2-19 libebook-contacts-1.2-2 libedata-book-1.2-25 libphonenumber7 libprotobuf10 libprotoc10 python3-macaroonbakery python3-protobuf ubuntu-desktop ubuntu-session ubuntu-unity-desktop unity unity-control-center unity-session unity-tweak-tool
which I confirmed!
To be safe, prior to the confirmation, I copied/pasted this list of packages in a text file! After what I reinstalled them all with apt
.
And of course, I reinstalled libprotobuf10
. This time it worked and apt
was able to install the version 3.0.x from the official Ubuntu repositories.
This has fixed the unity login issue.
Now:
$ find /usr -iname "*libprotobuf.so*"
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libprotobuf.so.10.0.0
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libprotobuf.so.10
Best Answer
If you absolutely don't want the graphical login screen, edit
/etc/defaults/grub
, Changing GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT and GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX to "text". Then runupdate-grub
.This question has more information on how to remove the graphical splash screen too:
How do I boot into true text mode?
Basically it stops the display manager (lightdm) from loading on system startup.
Also, you can still launch it any time you want manually by doing