10.04 LTS RC: Blank Screen at startup

[Paul41]

Same thing here.

Trying the LiveCD on a Dell Latitude D400 which runs 9.10 just fine. This laptop has Intel 855GM chipset.

I am really really surprised at this blank screen problem.

I tried the suggestion about hitting the spacebar. Didn't make any difference.

Tried nucleuskore's suggestion. Didn't make any difference.

Ends up at blank screen at start up.



Not sure where to go from here.

I'm stuck with the same problem

[Darque1137]

I'm stuck with the same problem

Same here - old Dell 700m with Intel chipset. When I upgraded from 9.10, I was at least able to go from Grub to safemode. (I have no idea where you guys are using your grub tricks... all I can do is hit Escape and boot from failsafe.) I tried a fresh install from disc, and I get to the "ubuntu" screen with the five white/red dots showing progress, and then a black screen with nothing. Tried the "nomodeset" trick, nothing. Install utterly fails. So frustrating. I first installed Feisty Fawn on this computer, and I had to dig around everywhere to find a screen resolution hack that would let me see anything. Now, years later, there isn't even an operational workaround. Very, very frustrating. Do I really have to go through all this just to have a computer that only runs Firefox and OpenOffice?

[twrock]

Same here - old Dell 700m with Intel chipset.

Yep, Dell 700m, blank screen. No deal.

It's a real bummer. I was hoping to make the move from 9.04 (I skipped 9.10) to an LTS version. Hopefully someone will come up with a realistic solution.

Hmm, maybe this should have been a 10.06 version, similar to the release of Dapper.

[twrock]

(NOTE: please see Post #38 below for something that worked much more simply on my Dell 700m.)

I'm back. Typing this post from within 10.04 on my Dell 700m. This may be premature (i.e. I won't be able to get things working after an install, etc.), but at least I'm in to something that works with the Live CD (actually a Live USB stick).

I got this from another source that I don't have the link to at this moment, so credit goes elsewhere. Here's what worked for me.

1. When you see the purple box with the little keyboard and person, hit a key to enter options.
2. Choose your language.
3. Verify you have chosen "Try Ubuntu without any changes."
4. Press F6.
5. Press Esc to get out of the menu that pops up.
6. Go to the end of the commandline (with arrow keys if necessary) and type: "i915.modeset=1" (If this doesn't work, try "i915.modeset=0" instead.)
7. Hit Enter and pray hard.

That got me in; I hope it works for you.

[More edits] Here's a link with a bunch of info: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Bugs/Lucidi8xxFreezes
I tried Workaround A. It works, but it has other problems on my Dell 700m. Now at each boot, I get an error message. I then choose to "Restart X" and things are fine after that. But I really don't want an extra step on each boot, so I'll keep working on it.

[And yet more edits] I think I got it! Instead of Restarting X on the boot error, I chose to Troubleshoot the error. Then I chose to Edit the configuration file. I changed "vesa" to "intel" and clicked ok. I rebooted. at the GRUB menu, I hit "e" and worked down to the end of the line that has "quiet splash" and added "i915.modeset=1" (no quotes). I hit Ctrl-X and everything went without a hitch! So now I just need to edit my GRUB configuration file to make that permanent, and I should be in business. So a combination of Workaround A, editing the configuration file, and editing the GRUB configuration should finally work for me.

As always, YMMV.

[westbarbary]

I'm back. Typing this post from within 10.04 on my Dell 700m. This may be premature (i.e. I won't be able to get things working after an install, etc.), but at least I'm in to something that works with the Live CD (actually a Live USB stick). However, I only have 1024x768 resolution right now.

I got this from another source that I don't have the link to at this moment, so credit goes elsewhere. Here's what worked for me.

1. When you see the purple box with the little keyboard and person, hit a key to enter options.
2. Choose your language.
3. Verify you have chosen "Try Ubuntu without any changes."
4. Press F6.
5. Press Esc to get out of the menu that pops up.
6. Go to the end of the commandline (with arrow keys if necessary) and type: "i915.modeset=0 xforcevesa" (no quotes; that is a zero, not a capital O; I also was able to boot without "xforcevesa" at the end).
7. Hit Enter and pray hard.

That got me in; I hope it works for you.

[Edit] After installation (in which I kept my /home partition), I was able to reboot into my new system. However, the monitor is not detected and I am still operating in 1024x768 mode (instead of the possible 1280x800 mode it is supposed to support). But it "works".

I am having a similar problem. After upgrading on my Dell Inspiron 510m I get the Ubuntu start screen with the moving dots for a short period before the entire screen goes blank and the computer unresponsive. I have tried most of the advice on this forum but none has met with any success. My graphics on the Dell are onboard and I have had no trouble at all with previous installations. Does anyone have any ideas?

[Unicast]

I'm back. Typing this post from within 10.04 on my Dell 700m. This may be premature (i.e. I won't be able to get things working after an install, etc.), but at least I'm in to something that works with the Live CD (actually a Live USB stick). However, I only have 1024x768 resolution right now.

I got this from another source that I don't have the link to at this moment, so credit goes elsewhere. Here's what worked for me.

1. When you see the purple box with the little keyboard and person, hit a key to enter options.
2. Choose your language.
3. Verify you have chosen "Try Ubuntu without any changes."
4. Press F6.
5. Press Esc to get out of the menu that pops up.
6. Go to the end of the commandline (with arrow keys if necessary) and type: "i915.modeset=0 xforcevesa" (no quotes; that is a zero, not a capital O; I also was able to boot without "xforcevesa" at the end).
7. Hit Enter and pray hard.

That got me in; I hope it works for you.

[Edit] After installation (in which I kept my /home partition), I was able to reboot into my new system. However, the monitor is not detected and I am still operating in 1024x768 mode (instead of the possible 1280x800 mode it is supposed to support). But it "works".

Or try the kernel option "i915.modeset=1" without the "xforcevesa" option.

Works like a charm for me on my D400.

If it works you can make the changes permanent: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...5&postcount=11

[Rackstar]

Did anyone file a bugreport?

I did: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/572868

Please click "this affects me too" to get some attention.

[twrock]

Or try the kernel option "i915.modeset=1" without the "xforcevesa" option.

Works like a charm for me on my D400.

If it works you can make the changes permanent: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...5&postcount=11

Yes, it does work. I've been working on this all day. I just got done reinstalling to see what the truly necessary steps would be for a fresh install on my Dell 700m.

If I add "i915.modeset=1" to the the boot from a USB stick (I suppose CD will be the same), I then end up at the error screen "Ubuntu is running in low graphics mode". I clicked OK, then "Troubleshoot the error" then "Edit configuration", then edited "vesa" to "intel". Then I "closed", "cancelled" and the hit "Restart X". That got me into live mode with full screen support. Once there, I installed as usual.

After reboot, I hit "e" at the GRUB screen, and added "i915.modeset=1" at the end of the line with "quiet splash". Then hit Ctrl-X to finish booting. It all went off without a hitch.

So now I will edit my GRUB configuration to make it permanent, and everything will be done.

I'll leave what I wrote above, because maybe something there will be useful for some other hardware. But for the Dell 700m (Intel 855GM chip), it is that simple.

[Leischa]

Eureka !!

I have a HP Pavilion SLimline s7727c

with lspci giving me
VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation C51 [GeForce 6150 LE] (rev a2)

I was getting a blank screen (out of sync) on booting from the live cd.

I worked around the problem as follows:

• At install screen press F6 and select nomodeset and install Ubuntu as usual.
• On first boot after install, press e on getting the GRUB bootloader.
• Using arrow keys navigate to and delete quiet and splash and type the word nomodeset in their place
• Press Ctrl and X to boot
• You should now be able to login to your Ubuntu as usual

For those of you who do not know what to do next, in the taskbar click on System->Administration->Hardware drivers, and select and activate the nvidia current driver if you have an nvidia card like I do. The driver will be downloaded and activated automatically, and you will be prompted for a reboot.

I just did that and it still doesn't work. I think this is a really poor show by Ubuntu.

[jdoor0]

Hello,

I have a Dell Inspiron 510m with the same "black-screen" problem as described here. I got the solution from this page: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Bugs/Lucidi8xxFreezes

When booting, I pressed ESC as soon as GRUB displayed its message, then I selected the first line mentioning "recovery" (normally that is the second line, the first line is a "standard" boot) and pressed ENTER. This boots Linux in recovery mode (so you'll see lots of debugging info scrolling by, and maybe one or more of your harddisks will get checked through fsck, which may take a few minutes). Then, a menu will appear, of which I selected the first entry (continue booting, or something like that). Then, on the login prompt, I entered my login and password. From then on, I followed the instructions of workaround A (see link above) and then entered "reboot". The system restarted, and succesfully got to the graphical login. Hope this helps for some other "victims"...