Fix Broken GNOME After Chown Mistake | Generated by AI

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Question: After attempting to boot from the USB on the Lenovo XiaoXin 14 IAH8 laptop (currently running Ubuntu), it fails to boot and shows the error “failed to start gdm gnome display manager”. This happened because previously, to fix a Claude code CLI upgrade issue, the command sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/ was run, which changed ownership of /usr/ (and subdirectories) from root to the user lzwjava. How to fix this broken GNOME Display Manager (GDM) login screen issue?

Answer:

The command sudo chown -R lzwjava /usr/ (or whatever your username is) is extremely dangerous. It broke system binaries, libraries, configuration files, and services that must be owned by root (or sometimes specific system users like systemd-*, messagebus, etc.). GDM failing to start is just the most visible symptom — many other parts of the system are likely also broken or have permission issues.

Quick Recovery Options (from easiest to more involved)

Option 1: Boot into recovery / single-user mode (recommended first try)

  1. Power on the laptop.
  2. When the GRUB menu appears:
    • If GRUB is hidden, hold Shift (or spam Esc) right after powering on.
  3. In GRUB, highlight your normal Ubuntu entry → press e to edit.
  4. Find the line that starts with linux (usually contains quiet splash).
  5. At the end of that line, add a space and then:
    rw init=/bin/bash
  6. Press Ctrl + X or F10 to boot.
  7. You should drop into a root shell (no login required).

Now run these commands one by one:

mount -o remount,rw /
mount --all

# Restore correct ownership (this is the critical step)
chown -R root:root /usr
chown root:root /usr/bin /usr/sbin /usr/lib /usr/share 2>/dev/null

# Fix any obvious executable bits that might have been lost
chmod -R u+rX,go+rX,go-w /usr/bin /usr/sbin /usr/libexec
chmod -R 755 /usr/bin /usr/sbin

# Reinstall gdm3 (very important – many files were probably damaged)
apt update
apt install --reinstall gdm3 ubuntu-gnome-desktop gnome-session gdm3

# Also reinstall core packages that almost certainly have wrong ownership now
apt install --reinstall bash coreutils systemd udev passwd login sudo

# Optional but helpful: fix common other locations
chown -R root:root /etc /bin /sbin /lib /lib64 /var 2>/dev/null
chmod -R 755 /bin /sbin /lib /lib64 2>/dev/null

sync
reboot

Option 2: Use live USB (Ubuntu or any Linux live session) to repair

  1. Boot from your Ubuntu live USB (or make a new one).
  2. Choose “Try Ubuntu”.
  3. Open Terminal.
  4. Identify your internal drive (usually /dev/nvme0n1pX or /dev/sdaX — be very careful).
sudo fdisk -l                # find your root partition (look for Linux filesystem ~50–100+ GB)
sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1pX /mnt   # replace X with your root partition number
sudo mount --bind /dev   /mnt/dev
sudo mount --bind /proc  /mnt/proc
sudo mount --bind /sys   /mnt/sys
sudo mount --bind /run   /mnt/run
sudo chroot /mnt

Now inside chroot, run the same repair commands as above:

apt update
apt install --reinstall gdm3 ubuntu-gnome-desktop gnome-session
chown -R root:root /usr /etc /bin /sbin /lib /lib64 /var
chmod -R 755 /usr/bin /usr/sbin /bin /sbin
exit
reboot

Option 3: Last resort — reinstall Ubuntu (fastest if above fails)

Important notes

If you get stuck at any step (e.g. specific error messages), provide them and I can give more targeted commands.

References:

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