Black Screen when trying install

[dcfc91]

I'm trying to boot ubuntu netbook 10.04 off a USB stick onto a Laptop

Dell Latitude D505
Windows XP Pro
Intel Pentium M 1.60GHz
512mb RAM

When I boot the Ubuntu Graphic comes up and then the screen goes black and stays that way, anyone have any ideas for a fix. The laptop is former corporate computer that has all sorts of crap on there, the owner didn't know the passwords or anything but I was able to get into it with a little work[did I mention that Novell sucks]. Anyway it's completely messed up and I just want to clean it off and get Ubuntu on there. Oh and BTW I'm a Linux noob so take it easy on me, thanks.

[dcfc91]

I tried to install it within windows to see if it would work there and joy there either, it says ''An Error Occurred: Cannot Download the metalink and therefore the ISO

[dcfc91]

I burned it to a disk and again the same thing happened, I would REALLY appreciate any help, thanks.

[dcfc91]

I am now getting message that says the BOOTMGR is missing

[DavidLR]

HI,
I have exactly the same problem. Will apreciate any help at all.

In my case Ubuntu ran fine from the CD I burned - as soon as I installed it, I get purple scree wiyj circle logo, then "Booting...." then blqank screen and flashing cursor, then no cursor. I've waited 2 hours so it's not a "slow" process!

Thanks

[dcfc91]

Okay so I tried both the USB stick[I used unetbootin] and the CD again and I got a message that says GLib-WARNING **: getpwuid_r(): failed due to unknown user id, that was with both the CD and the USB.

[NFA]

Was there any solution to this problem?

I have also a D505 and it to fails to load the desktop 10.04 version stopping at a black screen. Doesn't matter how I try and load Ubuntu (via windows, boot CD, full install) it always stops at the same place. The black screen is briefly preceded by a flicker which I take to indicate it could be a graphics card problem.

I could get a resolution of sorts if booted in "safe graphics (?)" mode. I ended up with a DOS command screen. Is it possible to crank up the graphics from there with a command code?

Would love to get Ubuntu working on this machine as Ubuntu for some reason on the network here works at about 4x the speed of windows when accessing the internet. Stuff knows why, but good on you Ubuntu. You may have another convert if I can fix this D505 problem.

Would an older version of Ubuntu work assuming the D505 is just too old and out of date?

NFA

[P4man]

This thread suggest you may need a newer kernel for your laptop:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1467235

Try downloading the daily build and see if that solves it:

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lucid/daily-live/current/

Alternatively you can try this fix suggested in the above thread:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9211410&postcount=4

[NFA]

Thanks P4man - just loading 9.1 onto the D505 after finding the thread you linked. Being a Ubuntu virgin I got a bit put off by all the script commands. Shades of DOS days....:-)

Will try the daily download latter in the week as I need to get some work done. Cannot play with computers all day.

Many thanks for the swift reply.

NFA