10.04 LTS installation troubles

[cawtrey]

I am trying to install 10.04 from a live disk onto a machine that currently has no OS. The problem happens after I choose to restart. I get an initial bios screen, but then the monitor goes black, followed by a blinking "_" in the upper left corner. After a minute or so, the signal to the monitor is lost and the screen goes completely black.

I am very new to linux, but from what I've read, this is an indication that there is a graphics problem. Here is a description of my hardware:

- Dell Precision T7500n
- Dual Quad Core Intel Xeon Processor E5620, 2.40GHz,12M L3, 5.86GT/s, turbo
- 24GB, DDR3 RDIMM Memory, 1066MHz, ECC (12 DIMMS)
- 512MB NVIDIA Quadro NVS 420, Quad Monitor, 4DVI
- 1TB SATA 3.0Gb/s, 7200 RPM Hard Drive

Despite the hardware, I am very much a beginner, and my computer vocab is quite limited. But if someone could offer me help with this, I would greatly appreciate it. The more detailed the better.

[kooia]

If you just recently built this computer, then there might be a problem with the way you set up the hard drive. Check to make sure it's working. If there's the flashing _, then it looks like you've already installed Ubuntu. I'm not an expert either, but when I dual boot, it always has the _ before the boot settings.

Maybe you should check again to make sure the hardware is set up correctly.

There are a lot of graphics card problems.

And, just wondering, what's the 24GB of RAM about and how in the world did you ever install that much? My motherboard only supports 2 GB of RAM.

[Cason]

From what I understand, this error most commonly happens from video card issues. If you search in the forums using your particular make of video card, you might find the specific issues related to your card and how to solve them.

If your issue is a video one, you should be able to at least get it to boot by using the "nomodeset" command in your boot options. This may sound scary, but it's actually not too difficult. To change your boot options, select which system you want to boot in GRUB, then press the key (I think it's 'x'; the bottom of the GRUB window will tell you.) If you select Ubuntu, it should look something like this:


menuentry 'Ubuntu 2.6.32-23' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
recordfail
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,5)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set d2139a9e-b3ee-4684-a7ee-d654bbfcccd7
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-23-generic root=UUID=d2139a9e-b3ee-4684-a7ee-d654bbfcccd7 ro splash vga=789 quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-23-generic

In your case, you would simply type one space add the "nomodeset" command after the "quiet splash" in this line:


linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-23-generic root=UUID=d2139a9e-b3ee-4684-a7ee-d654bbfcccd7 ro splash vga=789 quiet splash

Now the whole thing should look like this:


menuentry 'Ubuntu 2.6.32-23' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
recordfail
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,5)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set d2139a9e-b3ee-4684-a7ee-d654bbfcccd7
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-23-generic root=UUID=d2139a9e-b3ee-4684-a7ee-d654bbfcccd7 ro splash vga=789 quiet splash nomodeset
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-23-generic

This SHOULD at least allow you to get Ubuntu booted, at which point you can make the necessary permanent adjustments so that it boots every time without problems.

If "nomodeset" doesn't work, some other people have had similar screen problems and have been able to solve them by adding either "processor.max_cstate=1" or "nohz=off" instead. Good luck! :)