10.04 & 9.10 installs fail, Asus MX-M2V + nVidia 7600 GS

[mclad]

Hello. I am completely failing at installing most variants of ubuntu on my desktop (ubuntu & kubuntu 10.04, 9.10, normal & alternate, and mint 9 tried, all MD5 checks OK). My system has:
Motherboard: Asus MX-M2V (google +ubuntu (http://www.google.com.au/search?q=asus+mx-m2v+ubuntu))
Graphics card: gigabyte nVidia 7600 GS (google + ubuntu (http://www.google.com.au/search?q=nvidia+7600+GS+ubuntu))
2GB RAM, AMD64 dual core, etc.

On installing the normal CD I recieve the possibly misleading message

(process:335): GLib-WARNING **: get pwuid_r() failed due to unknown user id(0)I've bean able to get past this stage by removing the "quiet splash" install option, however it still fails, usually with a garbled screen.

The alternate CDs seem to work better but still ultimatley fail with a garbled screen. Mint 9 when live from the CD had the mouse cursor missing on the normal greed desktop, only a few pixels over a square about 1cm x 1cm were shown. I managed to run the "hardinfo" report guessing where the mouse was and save to a USB stick, I have attached the report.

Reading forums I saw a few things to try so I just installed Ubunto 9.10 alternate CD adding "xforce vesa" and "nomodeset" to the command line. During install I disconnected my 2 windows HDs so as to simplify matters. The install was to have a whole HD (Maxtor 160GB, IDE).

On booting with only that HD attached I am presented with the ubuntu logo, followed by a black screen with the mouse pointer only. At a certain point in the screen the pointer changeds to a insert text cursor. Once I managd to get something to happen by typing in my passowrd at this cursor but after this point only a garbled screen. Another interesting thing, after this I installed GAG (http://gag.sourceforge.net/) to the MBR of my primary SATA drive which successfully loads either of my win HDs, but when I try to use GAG to boot to the ubuntu HD it reports "sector boot not found or invalid"

I can get a command line on the HD with the ubuntu 9.10 screen using the "Recovery option" from the install CD but then do not know what to try. Hope you guys have some ideas as I really want to try ubuntu and have put in many hours trying various things to no avail and I'm ready to throw in the towel. Please give me some instructions on what to try next and I'll post results.

[davidmohammed]

it sounds like a graphics issue. Given that you said the boot option "nomodeset" works can I suggest the following.

Install 10.04 - but use nomodeset when installing.

When the installation reboots - press shift when booting to display your grub followed by e to edit.

find the line with quiet splash

add nomodeset immediately BEFORE quiet splash

CTRL+X to continue to boot.

[mclad]

OK. i will try this tomorrow sometime as i must to bed

[mclad]

it sounds like a graphics issue. Given that you said the boot option "nomodeset" works can I suggest the following.

Install 10.04 - but use nomodeset when installing.

When the installation reboots - press shift when booting to display your grub followed by e to edit.

find the line with quiet splash

add nomodeset immediately BEFORE quiet splash

CTRL+X to continue to boot.
Cheers David.
I didn't have time to reinstall 10.04 so I tried the above on my current install of 9.10.

Adding nomodeset to the linux line in the boot commands didn't help :(

Next I tried using the "recovery" option from the grub menu, which presented me with a Recovery Menu. From here I reinstalled grub, and ran dpkg to update any broken packages (this used an additional 193 MB on my HD). After this I was spat out at the command line and don't know what to do from there so I rebooted...
... and same problem.

Is it really worth me reinstalling 10.04 and the trying the same thing? Are there any diagnostic tests I can run from the command line that would help first?

Thanks for your help so far.

[davidmohammed]

OK - instead of installing, use the "try without installing" option in 10.04.

Plug in the live CD - when booting, press any key and you should be presented with 6 options.

Press either F6 or tab (I think) - add

nomodeset nolapic

BEFORE quiet splash

press the option to boot.

Hopefully you will get to the desktop.

If you dont. Try booting with

nomodeset noapic

or

nomodeset noacpi

or

nomodeset acpi=off


Assuming one of the combinations above work then install. When rebooting, dont forget to edit your grub as in my post above and add the combination boot option you have found.

[mclad]

:(
tried all those options for 10.04 and got a garbled screen similar to the one attached (the screenshot is actually from linux mint 9, but it looks the same as trying ubuntu except different colours)

Would installing linux drivers for my motherboard and/or graphics card help?

Asus have beta linux drivers on their website:
http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socketAM2/M2V-MX/LinuxDrivers.zip

And nVidia also have linux drivers:
http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/256.35/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-256.35.run

I think I can get a command line using the 9.10 CD or other boot option, if I put these on a USB stick or CD, how can I install them from the command line?

By the way, the filelist from the Asus M2V-MX LinuxDrivers.zip file is below:

File list for the included support software for M2V-MX motherboard
================================================== ============================
File Name Description
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--LinuxDrivers

-Audio -Realtek ALC883 Audio Driver for Linux.
Source path: \LinuxDrivers\Audio\
Download URL: http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/dlhd-2.aspx?lineid=2004052&famid=2004052&series=2004061&Software=True&title=HD%20Audio%20CODECs

-VGA -VIA/S3G VGA Driver for Linux.
Source path: \LinuxDrivers\VGA\
Download URL: http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/graphics/

-Chipset -VIA RAID Linux Combo Drivr Package Version 2.10 support RedHat 9.0, Fedora Core 1, SuSe 8.2, Mandrake 9.1, Mandrake 9.2 and RedFlag 4.0.

-LAN -Realtek RTL8100C LAN Driver for Linux.
Source path: \LinuxDrivers\LAN\
Download URL: http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/


--FILELIST.TXT

[davidmohammed]

hi there,
the link you gave doesnt appear to work

below you mentioned
-VGA -VIA/S3G VGA Driver for Linux.

this is a different graphics driver than you stated - nvidia.

Have you definitely got a nvidia graphics?

lspci | grep VGA


I've reread your first post. You mentioned you tried xforce vesa. Is this a typo?

the boot option should be

nomodeset xforcevesa

i.e. no space.

can you try the live CD again (try without installing) but make sure you use the boot options

nomodeset xforcevesa

this should get you to the desktop but with low resolution graphics.

[mclad]

hi there,
the link you gave doesnt appear to work
The links to the Asus/Nvidia drivers work, the other links are from the FILELIST.TXT document in the Asus linuxdrivers.zip archive.


below you mentioned
-VGA -VIA/S3G VGA Driver for Linux.
this is a different graphics driver than you stated - nvidia.
Have you definitely got a nvidia graphics?
lspci | grep VGA
What does lspci | grep VGA mean?
I definitely have an nVidia PCIe card. S3 is the onboard graphics of the Asus motherboard.

I've reread your first post. You mentioned you tried xforce vesa. Is this a typo?
the boot option should be
nomodeset xforcevesa
i.e. no space.
can you try the live CD again (try without installing) but make sure you use the boot options

nomodeset xforcevesa

this should get you to the desktop but with low resolution graphics.
no it wasn't a typo, I got the command wrong :?

I tried the 10.04 live CD again with "nomodeset xforcevesa" and got the same garbled screen, but this time in low resolution garbles :roll:

I'll try adding that option to the grub of the 9.10 install I have on my HD later to see if that makes any difference but I don't have much hope...

[davidmohammed]

are you connecting via the DVI or VGA? I have read various reports of display problems for DVI connections.

Have you tried physically pulling out the NVIDIA PCIe card and see if the onboard graphics works by itself? Longshot - may be there is a graphics issue with two different graphics drivers available. You may have to eventually blacklist the onboard graphics driver to get your nvidia card to work.

[mclad]

are you connecting via the DVI or VGA? I have read various reports of display problems for DVI connections.

Have you tried physically pulling out the NVIDIA PCIe card and see if the onboard graphics works by itself? Longshot - may be there is a graphics issue with two different graphics drivers available. You may have to eventually blacklist the onboard graphics driver to get your nvidia card to work.

The connector is via the normal VGA cable.

I pulled out the nvidia card and am I able to get to the desktop of the live CDs of Ubuntu 9.10 & 10.04, Linux Mint 9 and Fedora 13, however in all cases there is no mouse pointer, which makes life a little tricky ;)
(I also tried all boot combinations of nomodeset nolapic/noapci/noapic/apci=off/xforcevesa)

Actually, there is a pointer, in each case 2 offset pixels about a 1cm below where the tip of the pointer activates. So in this fashion I can kind-off do stuff, e.g. I went to the desktop customisation menu and tried changing to a different style of mouse pointer, which made no difference. I'm using a standard USB mouse.

Anyway, I installed Linux Mint 9 for a change to try it out, and booting from the HD is the same result - no mouse pointer, but otherwise system appears functional.

In the Asus support linux drivers package http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socketAM2/M2V-MX/LinuxDrivers.zip
there is a VGA driver for the onboard graphics "k8m890xf40069-kernel-bin_20060620.run.tgz"
How can I install this from a USB drive using the command line?
(Or anything else I can try to get a mouse pointer!)

However this is not really a long term solution for me, as I need the nvidia card when I'm booting to windows and I can't be taking the card out everytime I want to run linux :?

[davidmohammed]

I would expect you would have to double click the .tgz file to open it in archive manager. extract the .run file to your home directory.

Open a terminal session.

Guessing now - type sh blah-blah.run

ie. whatever the filename is for the .run file.

...

on a separate track - well done for getting to the desktop. Some may disagree, but I think this shows there is some unwanted interaction between your onboard graphics and the nvidia card.

first option:
Try the following to fool the X server to just use the nouveau driver when the nvidia card is inserted.

gksudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

paste the contents of the following


Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "nv" # Change this to the driver you want
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

I think the nouveau driver is known as nv... or it may just be called "nouveau"...

save

shutdown

plug in your pcie card.

hopefully on reboot X server will now be forced to used the correct driver...

second option: (maybe in combination with the first)
see if there is anyway in the bios to disable the onboard graphics i.e. force the PC to make the "default screen" the NVIDIA card rather than the onboard graphics.

[mclad]

Well, we will never know if this would have worked as I´ve got 64 bit gnu/linux working... thanks for all your help though I´ve definitely learnt a lot.

After getting a completely garbled screen from the i386 live CD, and getting a desktop with but no mouse pointer after removing my nVidia 7600 GS video card and using the motherboard´s onboard GPU, I´m stoked to get a working desktop using the AMD64 live CD with the nVidia card in. :)

I find it odd though... most places i´ve read recommend the i386 / 32 bit version for newbs and unless you have > 4GB RAM, and nowhere have I seen suggestions to try the AMD64 version to get over install problems.

Anyway, so I´ve bought myself a linux magazine and have some guides printed out to teach myself how to drive this system, and I´ve installed Linux Mint 9 64 bit, with Fedora 13 and Kubuntu 10.04 to come on a separate partitions so I can work out what I like. Fun :lol:

BUT, one problem still. I have GAG 4.1 (http://gag.sourceforge.net/) installed on the MBR of a different harddrive that what I installed linux, and GAG works fine to boot either XP or Win 7 which are each on their own bootable HD. For some reason GAG cannot boot the HD I installed Linux on - I need to boot this drive from the BIOS. Gag reports:

Sector boot not found or invalidGAG can see the HD with Linux on as it provides options to boot either partition ¨83h Linux EXT2¨ or ¨82h¨, the latter which I presume is the Swap partition.

Can someone point me in the right direction... then I presume I edit the thread title to add a [SOLVED] :)

[oldfred]

First I would try booting the Ubuntu/grub2 drive and see if that boots ok. run sudo update-grub and it will find your other installs. If all that works you may find you like grub2.

It sounds like the gag boot loader requires a second boot loader installed into the system partition like windows does. Grub chainloads to windows. Old grub worked well this way but grub2 should not be installed to a partition but can be forced to install as long as you recognize it is less reliable.