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View Full Version : [ubuntu] 12.04->12.10 upgrade, no video



rscottdrysdale
October 29th, 2012, 08:37 AM
upgraded (and i use the word VERY loosely) to 12.10. now my LCD monitor says "out of range". linux does indeed boot - i can tell because it connects to wifi and shares it's wired ethernet to this windows machine, and windows can see the RAID5 filesystem (which is the primary purpose of the linux box).

1) how can i begin to fix this? i don't see any grub menus.

2) when i went from 10.x to 12.04, i was very disappointed by the new, "improved" UI. is it possible to get back the old UI? also, video performance was rather awful. flickering mouse pointer? what is this, 1985?

dino99
October 29th, 2012, 10:21 AM
on single Os system grub2 is only shown if you hit "shift" key down at end of bios process. Then enter to recovery mode and select the root command line:

apt-get purge grub-pc grub-common
apt-get install grub-pc

rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf

dpkg-reconfigure -phigh -a
(be patient and dont stop it before it end itself)

then reboot

note: cant give more help as you dont says which hardware is used nor driver

rscottdrysdale
October 29th, 2012, 02:21 PM
supermicro pdsmi motherboard (http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/pd/E7230/pdsmi.cfm), on-board ati rage xl graphics, monitor is a viewsonic va2226w (widescreen LCD, 1680x1050 native) connected through a belkin flip kvm.

rscottdrysdale
October 29th, 2012, 02:55 PM
pressing the SHIFT key repeatedly during startup does something because wifi does not connect, but i still have OUT OF RANGE on the LCD.

interestingly, if i let the system come up then press the power button on the machine to shut it down, i see the ubuntu shutdown screen briefly.

dino99
October 29th, 2012, 03:19 PM
remove "splash" on the boot line, thats let you seeing the verbose boot mode.

rscottdrysdale
October 29th, 2012, 03:29 PM
remove "splash" on the boot line, thats let you seeing the verbose boot mode.

how? i have *NO* video after bios, except briefly during power button shutoff.

oldfred
October 29th, 2012, 03:38 PM
I have nVidia so not sure of your issues. This was from before 12.10, but may help.

Resetting an out‐of‐range resolution (does not include grub's set gfxmode=640x480)
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Config/Resolution#Resetting_an_out-of-range_resolution

I install gome-panel or "fallback" which is the old style menu & screens. Some locations of things change & you have to use alt right click to put icons in top panel.

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/classicgnome
12.04 LTS / Precise Classic (No effects) Tweaks and tricks
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1966370 - kansasnoob
# for gnome2 prior to 12.04
sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback
# this is same as fallback but based on gnome3 for 12.04 or later
sudo apt-get install gnome-panel

sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak-tool
sudo apt-get install indicator-applet indicator-applet-session
Before you log in, click the gear icon and select GNOME Classic.

broomie
October 29th, 2012, 06:43 PM
its its Ati graphics card this worked for me

http://www.unixmen.com/ubuntu-12-10-and-amd-catalyst-problem-solved/

rscottdrysdale
October 30th, 2012, 08:07 PM
i'd love to try some of these suggestions, but i have *NO VIDEO* whatsoever after BIOS. i can apparently get into grub by pressing SHIFT repeatedly because i observe that the system does not come up, but again i have *NO VIDEO* and thus cannot see any grub menus.

oldfred
October 30th, 2012, 08:33 PM
Does shift, then one down arrow and enter get you into recovery mode. Grub sees key presses after BIOS one down should get the second entry or recovery mode.

Also you can easily change some video settings for grub from either Boot-Repair or Grub-Customizer. You can run Grub-Customizer in a liveCD.
Boot-Repair --> Advanced options --> GRUB options tab --> tick the "Uncomment GFXMODE" option --> Apply
Repair grub's video mode and other settings
https://launchpad.net/grub-customizer
HOWTO: Grub Customizer Updated for grub 1.99
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1664134

linux4me
October 30th, 2012, 09:28 PM
A couple of things you can try before you attempt changing grub is to let it boot normally to the blank screen then change to a console by hitting Shift+Ctrl+F2, then back with Shift+Ctrl+F7. I've had that work for me on a couple of different machines that were giving me a black screen or an "out of range" error message. One one, it somehow fixed it completely (?) and the next boot I got a display. On the other, I was able to change the settings in grub via the console session.

You can also try connecting the monitor straight to the machine instead of via the KVM just to make sure the KVM isn't causing a problem with 12.10.

rscottdrysdale
October 30th, 2012, 10:26 PM
i booted from the 12.04 live cd, did the "try ubuntu" thing. when that came up, i started a terminal and...

sudo mkdir /xxx
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /xxx
cd /xxx/boot/grub
sudo vi grub.cfg

and searched for gfxmode. i found (and please pardon typos, this is not a cut & paste):

...
if loadfont $font ; then
set gfxmode=auto
...

i changed it to

...
set gfxmode=800x600
if loadfont $font ; then
# set gfxmode=auto
...

after that change, i can see grub menus. however, i still can't get video if i let linux boot.

how can i proceed from here?

rscottdrysdale
October 30th, 2012, 10:55 PM
tried recovery mode, boot with failsafe graphics mode.

it says "continuing will remount..." and i say yes.

it says:

fsck from util-linux 2.20.1
/dev/sda1: Superblock last mount time is in the future... FIXED
(it says that stuff TWICE)
/dev/sda1: clean, xxx/yyy files, xxx/yyy blocks

and then nothing.

ctrl+alt+fN will switch to consoles with an underline cursor. nothing else happens.

rscottdrysdale
October 31st, 2012, 03:31 AM
http://www.flickr.com/photos/67493462@N06/8140363303/

rscottdrysdale
October 31st, 2012, 10:00 AM
okay...

i have HAD IT with ubuntu. each "upgrade" results in lower performance and more bugs.

do you guys TEST this stuff?

as a professional software engineer, i'm appalled.

YannBuntu
October 31st, 2012, 01:14 PM
do you guys TEST this stuff?

as a professional software engineer, i'm appalled.

as a pro, you should know that crying here is useless, you should report on the bug tracker: https://bugs.launchpad.net/

rscottdrysdale
October 31st, 2012, 01:35 PM
as a pro, you should know that crying here is useless, you should report on the bug tracker: https://bugs.launchpad.net/

more user friendliness. exactly how does one report a bug from that page?

oldfred
October 31st, 2012, 03:47 PM
Best if you know what package, but that often is not clear.

bug reports info on how to do:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs


Quantal (12.10) Known bugs and work arounds
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2073060

linux4me
October 31st, 2012, 04:53 PM
ctrl+alt+fN will switch to consoles with an underline cursor. nothing else happens.

Are you using LVM full-disk encryption on this install? If so, when you're at the console with the blinking underline cursor, try typing in your passphrase and then hit Enter.

rscottdrysdale
October 31st, 2012, 06:55 PM
Are you using LVM full-disk encryption on this install? If so, when you're at the console with the blinking underline cursor, try typing in your passphrase and then hit Enter.

no. the boot disk (/dev/sda1) is ext4. there is a raid5 pile (four 500G drives at /dev/sd[bcde]1) using ext4. no encryption anywhere. note that the raid is listed in fstab so it'll automount on boot. the raid volume is NOT necessary for the system, it is simply shared via samba.

linux4me
October 31st, 2012, 07:36 PM
There is a good article about blank screens on boot here (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1743535) with very complete info on how to resolve most of the likely causes, and if you scroll down to the troubleshooting flow chart, you may be able to follow those steps to actually get to a place where you can work around this.

I know how frustrating this kind of thing can be. I've been using Ubuntu for years, and I actually like working through issues with new releases as long as it's not on my primary machine, but for those who want an OS that just works and don't want to be on the bleeding edge, my advice is to wait about 2-3 months after an LTS comes out, back up your /home folder, do a clean install, restore your home folder, and use the LTS version until a few months after the next LTS comes out, then upgrade again. That means 12.04 is the place to be now if you want to minimize this kind of thing, but I suspect you can get this particular issue resolved.

rscottdrysdale
October 31st, 2012, 08:18 PM
That means 12.04 is the place to be now if you want to minimize this kind of thing...

12.04 is where the "no video during grub/startup screen" problem began. in fact, i just installed mint 13, and it has the same problem as 12.04 in the video department. 12.04 and mint 13 work once the desktop comes up. mint's is usable, unity is most certainly NOT. i've honestly never seen a more impenetrable (and slow) GUI in my life. 20MHz 68030 diskless workstations on 10 megabit thinnet were faster.

i'm getting pretty good at switching distributions:

i have to install mdadm and run several shell commands and edit /etc/fstab to get my RAID up.

i have to install samba (several pieces), create a samba user, and configure samba to share the raid.

i have to configure eth0 to share the wifi connection. and SOMETIMES i have to change the windows machine's DNS server to 192.168.1.1 (the DSL modem) because eth0 sharing SOMETIMES doesn't forward DNS requests to wifi. and connection sharing isn't nearly as slick on linux as it is on windows - on windows, the host (sharing) machine and the machines on either side appear on one big happy subnet. on linux, you end up with two subnets, which nukes things like printer sharing.

at the current rate of development, i think linux might be as usable to the average joe as windows 95 in about 10 years.

STOP CHANGING THINGS FOR THE SAKE OF CHANGE. FIX WHAT'S BROKE!

jarrod-simpson
August 10th, 2013, 12:48 AM
Ok, I will re read to see if there was an actual solution posted, but let me say that I am currently having this issue. I do have an ATI card. I was just going through the motions to t get to 13.04 any and I'm just looking for the simplest way to get from 12.10 with no video to 13.04. If I burn 13.04 to a disk, can I upgrade from that (without erasing my data)? if not.....