Pendrive Ubuntu booting issues on Acer Aspire M5-583P

[mariocor93]

Solved....

[travisn000]

Solved....

How.. I have the same laptop and cannot get it to boot.

Thanks!

[Bucky Ball]

Forum etiquette to share the solution and mark the thread as solved. Please mark the thread as solved to save other's time. Thanks.

[travisn000]

I managed to get the live USB of 13.10 to boot to installer; never did get to desktop. After install (in efi mode with secure boot disabled) it boots to a black screen... Took me awhile to figure out that it is defaulting to a zero brightness setting. After turning the brightness on/up I get a blank desktop without a taskbar or launcher. I can right click the desktop and get setting, but no window frame/border.

Any suggestions appreciated.

[travisn000]

After a bit of sleep a simple fix presented itself... I have a working install of PCLinuxOS, why not use it's xorg.conf?

Here is what I did, hopefully it helps the next user that buys this laptop (xorg.conf file at the end of this post):


1) Create a win8 restore USB if you havn't already. Next, disable fastboot in windows 8 (google it!); then shut down, and boot to Bios / firmware..

2) press f2 at initial boot (acer logo) to enter EFI firmware / BIOS.. turn off safeboot, but keep EFI; also make sure your USB boot is above your HDD/SSD in boot priority; f10 to save & exit.

3) boot from ubuntu USB, select install; complete install to your liking. Reboot into your Ubuntu install.

4) After ubuntu boot the screen is black; turn up screen brightness with Fn+(right arrow). If not logged in, do so (..not guest session!); you will have wallpaper, but nothing else.

5) Press Ctl+Alt+T to open the terminal emulator since we don't have a graphical file manager; the rest of this process is simply copying a working xorg.conf file from another drive. Start by getting full root - type:

sudo su

6) Plug in a USB with the xorg.conf file from the end of this post; the USB drive will mount automatically at /media/<your username>/<random-string> ..find the exact path:
(..replace the <bracketed> info with your details)

ls  /media/
ls  /media/<username>/
# ..should show the your USB drive as a randomly named folder; repeat to check contents until you find your file..
ls  /media/<username>/<subdirectory-listed-above>

7) once you have found the the path to the file on your USB drive, copy the new xorg.conf file over your existing xorg.conf file:

cp /media/<username>/<subdirectory(s)>/xorg.conf /etc/X11/

8) confirm the copy worked by printing the contents of the installed xorg.conf file:

cat /etc/x11/xorg.conf

..this should spit out stuff that looks like the file contents posted at the end of this post! ;D

9) Next step is to log out and back in; since we don't have the usual onscreen stuff, log out by using Ctrl+Alt+Del.

10) Log back in; this time you should have a full working desktop (..you may still have to turn up the brightness to see it though ;D )


HERE is my working xorg.conf contents (download link):

# File generated by XFdrake (rev 262502)

# **********************************************************************
# Refer to the xorg.conf man page for details about the format of
# this file.
# **********************************************************************

Section "ServerFlags"
    Option "DontZap" "False" # disable <Ctrl><Alt><BS> (server abort)
    AllowMouseOpenFail # allows the server to start up even if the mouse does not work
    #DontZoom # disable <Ctrl><Alt><KP_+>/<KP_-> (resolution switching)
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load "v4l" # Video for Linux
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier "monitor1"
    VendorName "Generic"
    ModelName "Flat Panel 1360x768"
    HorizSync 31.5-48.0
    VertRefresh 56.0-65.0
    
    # TV fullscreen mode or DVD fullscreen output.
    # 768x576 @ 79 Hz, 50 kHz hsync
    ModeLine "768x576"     50.00  768  832  846 1000   576  590  595  630
    
    # 768x576 @ 100 Hz, 61.6 kHz hsync
    ModeLine "768x576"     63.07  768  800  960 1024   576  578  590  616
    
    # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake]
    ModeLine "1368x768_120"  185.67  1368 1472 1624 1880  768 769 772 823  -HSync +Vsync
    
    # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake]
    ModeLine "1368x768_100"  151.73  1368 1464 1616 1864  768 769 772 814  -HSync +Vsync
    
    # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake]
    ModeLine "1368x768_85"  125.67  1368 1456 1600 1832  768 769 772 807  -HSync +Vsync
    
    # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake]
    ModeLine "1368x768_75"  110.19  1368 1456 1600 1832  768 769 772 802  -HSync +Vsync
    
    # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake]
    ModeLine "1368x768_60"  85.86  1368 1440 1584 1800  768 769 772 795  -HSync +Vsync
    
    # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake]
    ModeLine "1368x768_50"  69.92  1368 1424 1568 1768  768 769 772 791  -HSync +Vsync
    
    # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake]
    ModeLine "1360x765_120"  182.63  1360 1456 1608 1856  765 766 769 820  -HSync +Vsync
    
    # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake]
    ModeLine "1360x765_100"  149.22  1360 1456 1600 1840  765 766 769 811  -HSync +Vsync
    
    # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake]
    ModeLine "1360x765_85"  124.65  1360 1448 1592 1824  765 766 769 804  -HSync +Vsync
    
    # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake]
    ModeLine "1360x765_75"  108.34  1360 1440 1584 1808  765 766 769 799  -HSync +Vsync
    
    # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake]
    ModeLine "1360x765_60"  84.40  1360 1424 1568 1776  765 766 769 792  -HSync +Vsync
    
    # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake]
    ModeLine "1360x765_50"  69.34  1360 1416 1560 1760  765 766 769 788  -HSync +Vsync
    
    # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake]
    ModeLine "1280x720_120"  161.56  1280 1376 1512 1744  720 721 724 772  -HSync +Vsync
    
    # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake]
    ModeLine "1280x720_100"  131.85  1280 1368 1504 1728  720 721 724 763  -HSync +Vsync
    
    # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake]
    ModeLine "1280x720_85"  110.01  1280 1360 1496 1712  720 721 724 756  -HSync +Vsync
    
    # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake]
    ModeLine "1280x720_75"  95.65  1280 1352 1488 1696  720 721 724 752  -HSync +Vsync
    
    # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake]
    ModeLine "1280x720_60"  74.48  1280 1336 1472 1664  720 721 724 746  -HSync +Vsync
    
    # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake]
    ModeLine "1280x720_50"  60.47  1280 1328 1456 1632  720 721 724 741  -HSync +Vsync
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier "device1"
    VendorName "Intel Corporation"
    BoardName "Intel 810 and later"
    Driver "intel"
    Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "screen1"
    Device "device1"
    Monitor "monitor1"
    DefaultColorDepth 24
    
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth 8
        Modes "1366x768" "1360x765" "1280x720"
    EndSubsection
    
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth 15
        Modes "1366x768" "1360x765" "1280x720"
    EndSubsection
    
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth 16
        Modes "1366x768" "1360x765" "1280x720"
    EndSubsection
    
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth 24
        Modes "1366x768" "1360x765" "1280x720"
    EndSubsection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier "layout1"
    Screen "screen1"
EndSection

[travisn000]

..another note..

after replacing xorg.conf as above I still had an issue with my initial user profile still not booting to a full desktop, but the guest session worked fine.. I tried deleteing ~/.config/monitors.xml in the broken user profile as suggesting in other threads, but it didn't help. I ended up just creatng a new profile and deleting the old one as follows:

1) right click on the desktop, select change background, then navigate into all settings, and users
2) create your new administrative user, then log out using ctrl+alt+del
3) log into new user, delete old user.

[mastablasta]

what GPU do you have?

xorg.conf shouldn't be necessary in ubuntu.

if it is really necessary if can be created.

[travisn000]

I believe the GPU is an intel HD 4400; its integrated into the haswell based mobile core i7 CPU (I forget the exact model).

As far as X being used in ubuntu, I don't know the answer (I'm not a regular user). I recall reading about ubuntu moving to mir (sp?), but I can say with pretty good certainty that I was getting errors from X, both in my logs, and intermittently in a popup bug reporting window (..thats what gave me the idea). I suppose its is possible that copying the file was just coincidental, or possibly mir (or whatever its called) was able to use it to reconfigure properly?

I figured ubuntu probably has an easy way to reconfigure x, but I was more familiar with using XFdrake in pclos, and I knew I had a working config there.

[mastablasta]

ah no... i think this chip needs either drivers installed separetelly or a newer kernel. 14.04 (i believe already in beta) should work fine.

13.10 kernel is older than the chip.

[Bucky Ball]

14.04 might be okay with the graphics, but there's no vouching for anything else, not a good place to start and not a good place to point a new user. 14.04 is still very much testing and there are bits missing. You can expect breakage.

My advice? Don't go there unless you are prepared to fix and report bugs and take an uphill ride on what could turn out to be a steep and possibly frustrating learning curve.