Recover from black screen only mouse showing/deleted SCIM

I deleted SCIM because I didn't think I needed it anymore, but now my aspire one only boots into a black screen with the mouse cursor showing. After many trials, I was able to recover everything without reinstalling or flashing the BIOS!!

Note: These directions are written for the more linux-enabled, but i'll try to be as complete as possible. If i say type "blah" with quotation marks, don't include the quotes, just type blah.

1. Create a bootable linux usb stick.
I used Sysresccd and it worked just fine. http://sysresccd.org/Sysresccd-manual-en_How_to_install_SystemRescueCd_on_an_USB-stick
2. Boot the USB by pressing F12 on the aspire boot.
3. For Sysresccd, type "altker32"
4. Once it is loaded, create a place to mount the acer hardrive - "mkdir /mnt/mydir"
5. mount the acer drive "mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/mydir"

6. Edit the xorg.conf to allow console access from the acer "vim /mnt/mydir/etc/X11/xorg.conf"
7. Press the down arrow twice to move the cursor the 3nd line. Press the 'i' key. type "#" at the beginning of the line to comment out the Option "Don't Zap" Yes. Press the ESC key. type ":wq" and press enter.

8. Edit the file that is not allowing the desktop to load properly "vim /mnt/mydir/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/xinput.sh"
9. arrow down to line 55 or so. type "/scim" and press enter. All entries with scim are highlighted.
look for the line starting with:

Code:

#kevin add for test scim set default langage
tmp_lang=`echo $LANG|awk -F. '{ print $1 }'`
rm -f $HOME/.scim/global

Press 'i' and type "#" in front of all the lines (if not already) starting with the

Code:

rm -f $HOME/.scim/global

Make sure to get everything. It ends with:

Code:

   
#                       cp -f /etc/scim/language/global.en $HOME/.scim/global
        #                       ;;
        #       esac
#       fi
#else
#       mkdir -p $HOME/.scim
#fi
#/usr/bin/scim-config-lang 
#rm -rf /home/user/.scim/pinyin 
#if [ $tmplang = "zh_CN.GB18030" ];then
#       GTK_IM_MODULE=scim-bridge
#else
#       GTK_IM_MODULE=scim
#fi

10. Press the ESC key. type ":wq" and press enter.
11. umount the acer drive "umount /mnt/mydir"
12. reboot by typing "reboot" and press enter.

That's it. It should boot normally now, unless you didn't edit out all the scim entries in step 9.

If it still is black with the mouse. press CTRL+ALT+Backspace. An acer screen appear. press enter.
Follow step 8 & 9 again.

I hope this helps someone.

 

deleting or moving /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/scim.conf has the same effect

I know this because I made the same mistake deleting scim