Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop All Black at 1280x1024

[philferrar]

yes, but I want to keep visual effects enabled. I don't want the problem to go away because I turned off the feature that's not working. I want to fix that feature and keep using it.

Sorry - didn't realise you needed to keep effects - perhaps someone else will provide a full solution soon.

[dwasifar]

[11/06/2009 - Editing to add newer options.]

yes, but I want to keep visual effects enabled. I don't want the problem to go away because I turned off the feature that's not working. I want to fix that feature and keep using it.

I agree with you. "Stop using it" is not a fix.

I'm having the same issue on an old Dell laptop with an ATI Radeon RV250 (Mobility FireGL 9000) running a 1400x1050 panel. When I moved this machine to Karmic, my desktop was black, with no desktop items appearing on it; but you could see the desktop wallpaper beneath the semi-transparent top panel.

In my case, the fix was exactly the opposite of what tormod described. Here's how to do it, step by step.

In terminal, run these two commands:

grep XAA /var/log/Xorg.0.log
grep EXA /var/log/Xorg.0.log

One of them will return nothing; the other will return something like this:

(**) RADEON(0): Option "AccelMethod" "XAA"
(**) RADEON(0): Using XAA acceleration architecture
(II) RADEON(0): Using XFree86 Acceleration Architecture (XAA)

This tells you which method is currently in use on your system. Whichever one it is, try the other. For me it was EXA, and switching to XAA solved the problem. Here is what to do.

If it reported XAA:

In terminal, do this:

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

This will give you a text editor window. Paste this into the text editor:

Section "Device"
 Identifier "my-radeon"
 Driver "ati"
 Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
EndSection

Save, and reboot, and see if the problem is solved.


If it reported EXA:

In terminal, do this:

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

This will give you a text editor window. Paste this into the text editor:

Section "Device"
 Identifier "my-radeon"
 Driver "ati"
 Option "AGPSize" "128"
EndSection

Then save the file and exit the editor, and reboot.

If the problem still isn't solved when you have rebooted, open the file in text editor again, and change it to look like this:

Section "Device"
 Identifier "my-radeon"
 Driver "ati"
 Option "AccelMethod" "XAA"
EndSection

Then save the file and exit the editor, and reboot.

Both of these solved the problem for me. The first one (with the AGPSize option) is the preferred choice and will result in better performance.

Post back and let us know if it fixes it for you.

[tormod]

I would not qualify disabling desktop effects as a fix, that's a workaround like wiping something under the carpet. These things are supposed to work on all Radeon cards.

The code I posted is supposed to go into a /etc/X11/xorg.conf file that you create. I am sure you can search and find some guides on how to create and edit text files.

EDIT: Oops, I did not see the last posts. Thanks for explaining.

[mugwump40]

All the "Fixes" may work for someone that can even get the system to boot, but there is something in the latest Debian core that absolutely will not work on my desktop. I even downloaded Debian and tried to install it and it died at the exact same spot as UBUNTU. I get the message that my display MUST be set to 1280 X 1024 and then it locks up. BTW, the display IS set to 1280 X 1024. My setup: HP Pavilion Slimline s3521p, AMD 64 X2 5200 processor, GeForce 6150SE graphics, 4096 Mb system memory, HP DVD RW, 500 Gb HD. The install wiped out my UBUNTU 9.04, so I guess my best bet is just to reload that and wait for this to get fixed. Thankfully, I'm running dual boot with Win XP, so I can still get into that.

[AvgOrdinaryGuy]

Just want to say thanks to dwasifar for posting that how-to above. I just installed 9.10 this afternoon, and could not figure out why I only had a black background and could not change it to any thing else. Turning off desktop effects fixed that, but changing to XAA fixed the problem on my A31P Thinkpad with 64MB Radeon graphics.

[non-prophet]

...........

OK, SOLUTION: (from another mail in the forum)
=================================
Turn visual effects off, it works immediately.
right-Click on any area on your desktop, get pop-up window, select "change desktop background",
select "Visual Effects", select "None",
fixes it!

The "Visual effects - none" temporary fix worked well for me.

(Reduction from 1680 x 1050 down to 1440 x 900 also worked but I prefer the resolution over the visual effects.)

Thanx guys.

[dwasifar]

All the "Fixes" may work for someone that can even get the system to boot...

If you're not even booting, then this is not the same problem.

[dwasifar]

Just want to say thanks to dwasifar for posting that how-to above. I just installed 9.10 this afternoon, and could not figure out why I only had a black background and could not change it to any thing else. Turning off desktop effects fixed that, but changing to XAA fixed the problem on my A31P Thinkpad with 64MB Radeon graphics.

You're welcome, but tormod deserves the thanks more than I do. He solved the problem, not me; I just explained his technique in more detail.

[emptybox]

You're welcome, but tormod deserves the thanks more than I do. He solved the problem, not me; I just explained his technique in more detail.

Well the technique worked for me as well.

I changed from EXA to XAA, and I can now enable the 3D effects using my Radeon 9200SE with 128MB and keep my desktop.

I think rotating the cube might be slightly less smooth than with 9.04?
But wobbly windows etc now work fine.

Do we know why this happened, and why for this specific card?
Did the developers drop support for it from the default driver, or is it some other issue?
I suppose it is an old card, but it had always been my most trouble free with Linux, up to now.

[Rubicon421]

Thanks dwasifar, this worked perfectly! I did notice that my graphics are a bit choppy when using the desktop effects now though. They were very smooth when using the desktop cube and minimize effect etc... before when I was using 9.04. Any ideas on how to fix that?