startx gives me a black screen on Ubuntu 20.04

Good afternoon,

I am running Ubuntu 20.04 on a Dell Optiplex 7040 with dual monitors. It is a server install plus xorg and i3wm. I did not want all the extras.

After I login if I run startx i3, Xorg starts fine and so does i3.

I then manually run xrdb ~/.Xresources to set some terminal settings and setxkbmap to set some keybindings.

If I put put those commands and exec i3 in my .initrc and just use startx I just get a black screen.

I figured there must be something wrong with xorg configuration so I tried to run sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg and it just hangs at the password prompt after I type in the password.

Since it works with startx and specifying i3 I am a bit hesitant to remove xorg and start over but that is what I am thinking should be done.

Any ideas?

Thanks.