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Versial
October 7th, 2009, 03:46 AM
Ok, I am relatively new to Ubuntu, I have and home-made machine and I am trying to dual boot xp and 9.04. I cannot use the live cd or do and install from the original cd, it goes through the ubuntu loading screen, and after that my screen just looks all messed up with lines all over the place. I tried 8.10 with the same result. I did some research online and was told to try the alt. cd. which i did with no problems. However the same problem occurs when trying to load. So I did further research and was told to try dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg and dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg from the recovery mode. However the only thing that brings up is one yes or no question about my video and the rest is all keyboard questions. I have been fighting this for two days and I am really getting frustrated. Sorry long winded.

rreese6
October 7th, 2009, 05:47 AM
We need more information.
Boot up your system to recovery mode and go to the root prompt and type:

lspci | grep VGA
Type the output of that command here.

This will tell us which video card that you have. then we can go from there.

Versial
October 7th, 2009, 11:44 PM
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G71 [GeForce 7950 GT] (rev a1)

mikewhatever
October 8th, 2009, 01:47 AM
You may need to install the proprietary nvidia driver while in recovery mode. Try sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx-180. What it should download and install the driver from the repositories, but you'll need to be online for that.

Versial
October 9th, 2009, 12:33 AM
You may need to install the proprietary nvidia driver while in recovery mode. Try sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx-180. What it should download and install the driver from the repositories, but you'll need to be online for that.

I did this and it didn't help how do I know if that is even the right driver?

Meow27
October 9th, 2009, 01:59 AM
you should download the latest driver from nvidia
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

after you have that. follow this guide

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=57368



though you may want to unisntall your current driver

(make sure you download for the '7' series)

SkyNet2029
October 9th, 2009, 02:12 AM
that bit abit dpkg-reconfigure...
you issued a command of
#dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg
ideally, since you are dealing with drivers, you should use
#dpkg-reconfigure -plow xserver-xorg

this will (after the keyboard and mouse info) give you a lower level of control
(more fine-grained) than the -phigh command.

note especially the hsync and vsync settings.

even if you do end up needing the nvidia driver, a selection of vesa with framebuffer should get you to a working screen. Once that is taken care of, worry about the nvidia drivers. First things first, get a working and usable screen.

Versial
October 9th, 2009, 02:22 AM
that bit abit dpkg-reconfigure...
you issued a command of
#dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg
ideally, since you are dealing with drivers, you should use
#dpkg-reconfigure -plow xserver-xorg

this will (after the keyboard and mouse info) give you a lower level of control
(more fine-grained) than the -phigh command.

note especially the hsync and vsync settings.

even if you do end up needing the nvidia driver, a selection of vesa with framebuffer should get you to a working screen. Once that is taken care of, worry about the nvidia drivers. First things first, get a working and usable screen.

I tried this command and it just gave me the same options as before, the yes or no video question and the keyboard questions. It stops after that.

As far as downloading and un-installing the nvidia driver...First, how I download the driver from the terminal since I can only work from recovery mode, and what is the command(s) for un-installing the one I just put in?

Versial
October 9th, 2009, 05:30 PM
Bump...Anybody?

mikewhatever
October 9th, 2009, 08:26 PM
I did this and it didn't help how do I know if that is even the right driver?

That's the newest driver available for Jaunty, and your card, GeForce 7950 GT, is listed among the supported ones.
http://packages.ubuntu.com/jaunty/nvidia-glx-180

I am really not sure what's wrong. Could it be the issue with the monitor?

Versial
October 9th, 2009, 09:02 PM
That's the newest driver available for Jaunty, and your card, GeForce 7950 GT, is listed among the supported ones.
http://packages.ubuntu.com/jaunty/nvidia-glx-180

I am really not sure what's wrong. Could it be the issue with the monitor?

I had thought of that and changed out monitors to no affect.

Meow27
October 9th, 2009, 10:11 PM
@ mike, the jaunty drivers work differently than the ones directly for nvidia.

thats the case for me

(7300 le user)

Versial
October 9th, 2009, 11:29 PM
Ok, well I still haven't gotten anywhere but I decided to try the live disk again. Under the start options I push f6 for other options then type in vga=771 and it's starts up fine. Is there anyway I can have that permanent?

mikewhatever
October 10th, 2009, 01:58 AM
Sure, just add it to the boot line in /boot/grub/menu.lst.


kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-15-generic root=UUID=889475-blabla ro single vga=771


Hope it works.

rreese6
October 10th, 2009, 02:09 AM
you can add the vga=771 to the kernel line in the menu.lst file located at /boor/grub.

boot up recovery

mount
see if you have a line that has /dev/sda1 or /dev/hda1 in it.
of you see one fo those then read the line the line t see what the mount point is. like "/media/sda1" or maybe "media/disk"
what ever you have then change to that directory.
Let say it is called /media/sda1
then

cd /media/sda1/boot/grub
then open the file menu.lst

sudo nano menu.lst
use arrow keys to move around and add "vga=771" to the end of the kernel line. in the first "Title" group. (this should be very near to the end of the file.
press ctrl X to exit , Y to save and enter.
reboot and you should have a desktop.

if you don't see a mount point for your drive then type this first

cd /media
sudo mkdir disk
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /media/disk

Versial
October 10th, 2009, 02:15 AM
Sure, just add it to the boot line in /boot/grub/menu.lst.


kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-15-generic root=UUID=889475-blabla ro single vga=771


Hope it works.

Thanks I tried that but it mixed the loading screen of Ubuntu with the xp boot loader for some reason. I am reverting back to 8.04 anything higher doesn't seem to work for some reason.

Versial
October 10th, 2009, 02:35 AM
you can add the vga=771 to the kernel line in the menu.lst file located at /boor/grub.

boot up recovery

mount
see if you have a line that has /dev/sda1 or /dev/hda1 in it.
of you see one fo those then read the line the line t see what the mount point is. like "/media/sda1" or maybe "media/disk"
what ever you have then change to that directory.
Let say it is called /media/sda1
then

cd /media/sda1/boot/grub
then open the file menu.lst

sudo nano menu.lst
use arrow keys to move around and add "vga=771" to the end of the kernel line. in the first "Title" group. (this should be very near to the end of the file.
press ctrl X to exit , Y to save and enter.
reboot and you should have a desktop.

if you don't see a mount point for your drive then type this first

cd /media
sudo mkdir disk
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /media/disk

Those where excellent directions btw I misread the first one and tried to edit the grub from the boot loader. However, even after following your directions it still didn't work. I am starting to suspect a deeper issue. But I can't place what it is, I have reinstalled xp and Ubuntu several different times and in different orders because I thought windows was causing the problem somehow. But nothing has seemed to work. Thanks anyway, but I am getting tired of the headache for now so like stated before I switch back to 8.04 it's the only one that still seems to work.