Completely garbled X screen on upgrade to Jaunty

[christopherbalz]

Was working fine with the previous version 8.x. Upgraded to 9.04. Previous set-up used Vesa driver, as I have an ATI card and wish to avoid the associated issues. Have turned off DRI, on both trial xorg.conf files: autogenerated and the old previously working one. Have tried the autoreconfigure options and also reinstalling the X server package. No errors in /var/log/Xorg.0.log. It ends with info-messages about initing some built-in extensions. Machine is IBM ThinkPad R51.

Just want basic video - any ideas?

[tommcd]

Try booting to recovery mode. When in recovery mode choose the option xfix fix video. Go through that and reboot.
I don't know much about ATI video cards but you should be able to use the open source ati or radeon driver. You should not have to use vesa.

[christopherbalz]

Thanks tons - sorry I forgot to mention I'd tried that. I tried again but it made no change in the result. Thanks in advance for any more ideas - will try just about anything.

[tommcd]

Try booting to recovery mode and run:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
Go through that and answer all the questions. Just choose the given default values if you are not sure. Then reboot. If that doesn't fix it I'm not sure what else you could try.
Have you looked at your xorg.conf file? Does it look like a sane configuration? Can you post any errors in your Xorg.O.log?

[christopherbalz]

Thanks - tried that but no luck. Next tried the recovery-mode fix-graphics optiin. No luck. Then checked xorg.conf - it is the mininal one written by the fixers (dpkg-reconfigure and the fix-graphics option. Added turn-off-DRI, but no luck. Xorg.0.log shows no errors and is 538 lines long. Issue seems very low-level (driver-related) since error logs don't show error. Tough one.

[christopherbalz]

One thing that doesn't seem right is that the dpkg-reconfigure only asks one video-related question, about the use of framebuffers. (I tried both options). Shouldn't it ask about the video card, etc?

[tommcd]

One thing that doesn't seem right is that the dpkg-reconfigure only asks one video-related question, about the use of framebuffers. (I tried both options). Shouldn't it ask about the video card, etc?
It used to. I haven't had to run that command since Ubuntu 6.06 or 7.04.
I'm not sure what else you could try at thins point. It sounds like your upgrade to 9.04 went bad.
Which version of Ubuntu did you upgrade from? Was it 8.04 or 8.10? You should upgrade in sequence, i.e., 8.04 > 8.10 > 9.04.

[christopherbalz]

I was on 8.10. However, perhaps I did get a bad download or something. When I run the "fix broken packages" option from recovery mode, it works on several packages. One of them is 's2disk', which is affected by vido driver issues.

Earthlink inadvertently shut my dsl off, and it may be a while (cancelled Earthlink) before I have Ethernet that recovery mode can use to repair broken packags (maybe it would work with wireless but seems unlikely).

So best thing to do next seems to be to run that fix-broken-packages with networking, correct?

[christopherbalz]

Did 'apt-get update', 'apt-get upgrade', and 'apt-get dist-upgrade' with working networking with no change in X result.

'apt-get upgrade' gives:
The following packages have been kept back:
hwinfo
0 upgraded, o newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.

Earlier a utility reported a problem with package 'uswsusp', so I uninstalled that package using apt-get ('remove') and then did:

apt-get install uswsusp

That results in:

Unpacking uswsusp (from .../uswusp_0.8-1.1ubuntu3_i386.deb) ...
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/uswsusp_0.8.1-1ubuntu3_i386.deb (--unpack):
trying to overwrite `/usr/sbin/s2disk', which is the diverted version of '/sbin/s2disk'
dpkg-deb: subprocess paste killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Errors were encountered while processing:
/var/cache/apt/archives/uswsusp_0.8-1.1ubuntu3_i386.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

I tried deleting that file (the .deb file) and re-installing but no change.

Since previously certain video drivers would interfere with 's2disk', and since I am getting this package error with 's2disk', I suspect that it may be the root of the problem with the completely garbled screen.

Any ideas on how to get 'uswsusp' to install properly?

[christopherbalz]

In case my previous post is unrelated, I put that sub-issue here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7944946#post7944946

[christopherbalz]

SOLVED - Solution was to:

a) Do the most thorough removal of fglrx possible, per this Ubuntu wiki:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Troubleshooting/FglrxInteferesWithRadeonDriver#Problem:%20%20Need% 20to%20fully%20remove%20-fglrx%20and%20reinstall%20-ati%20from%20scratch

b) Remove the line in '/etc/profile' that runs '/etc/ati/ati-flgrx.sh' (it crashes non-failsafe gnome start) ( This may not be necessary for others, as I had a special circumstance with my fglrx uninstallation due to a missed step ).

The uswsusp issue was unrelated, except that many ATI users may have it when upgrading to Jaunty. Solved that issue with the solution here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7946087#post7946087

[tommcd]

SOLVED - Solution was to:
a) Do the most thorough removal of fglrx possible, per this Ubuntu wiki:

b) Remove the line in '/etc/profile' that runs '/etc/ati/ati-flgrx.sh' (it crashes non-failsafe gnome start)
Glad you got it fixed.
In your first post you said you were using the vesa driver. Because you said you were using vesa, I never considered the possibility that the fglrx driver may be the cause of the problem.
So which driver (ati, radeon, or vesa) are you using now?

[christopherbalz]

Thanks! '/var/log/Xorg.0.log' indicates that the system is loading the xord radeon driver with dri:

. . .
/var/log/Xorg.0.log (II) LoadModule: "dri2"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions//libdri2.so
(II) Module dri2: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
compiled for 1.6.0, module version = 1.0.0
ABI class: X.Org Server Extension, version 2.0
(II) Loading extension DRI2
(II) Scanning /usr/share/xserver-xorg/pci directory for additional PCI ID's supported by the drivers
(II) Matched radeon from file name radeon.ids
(==) Matched radeon for the autoconfigured driver
(==) Assigned the driver to the xf86ConfigLayout
(II) LoadModule: "radeon"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers//radeon_drv.so
(II) Module radeon: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
compiled for 1.6.0, module version = 6.12.1
Module class: X.Org Video Driver
ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 5.0
(II) RADEON: Driver for ATI Radeon chipsets:
. . .

Xorg.conf currently is generic, with a modification to allow use of an external monitor with my laptop and the 'dontzap' for ctrl-alt-backspace restart of 'X' -

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
SubSection "Display"
Virtual 2304 1024
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
Option "DontZap" "False"
EndSection

[christopherbalz]

Just to note, the procedure detailed above solved this issue.