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View Full Version : [SOLVED] 8.04 upgrade to 10.04 now low resolution mode on boot



Rob P.
October 30th, 2012, 04:47 AM
On a whim I decided to upgrade my Hardy to Lynx after posting about needing my scanner to work. I got that problem solved and then upgraded.

Bad move. I think. There are 2 issues:

First issue:
On boot I get an error msg of:
Low resolution mode
(EE) NOUVEAU: error allocating scanout buffer: -12

The boot log for the error shows that my monitor is listed (Dell N1916 LCD monitor) and has all the display rates listed.

The monitor displays fine but the settings under system/.../monitors show the screen size to be 1366 x 768 and the refresh rate to be 0.

I cannot detect any monitors. I have no proprietary drivers installed and none are available through system/hardware/drivers.

I assume that Nouveau isn't compatible with my nVidia video card and that I have to uninstall Nouveau and install the nVidia pkgs. However I don't want to do this blind and guessing. So, any of you guru's willing to talk me through this?

Second issue:
This is probably not that big of a deal. On boot I'm getting a LOT of text/code that I shouldn't maybe be seeing? It flashes by very fast and says something like "will be removed on later versions." Lots and lots of lines of code saying this that fills the screen and scrolls upwards.

Then it changes to a flickering "changing settings" with an "[ok]" on the right side of the screen. I have booted several times to try to see what is going on but it's very very very fast and impossible to read.

I never had this text show up with Hardy. My hardware is ancient, slow, and at its probable limits but it works. At this point I'm tired and frustrated with trying to search for an answer to the screen resolution problem. Any help would be wonderful.

mastablasta
October 30th, 2012, 10:27 AM
it might be a good idea to try botoing into live session fist to see if everyhtign works before doing the upgrade. addtitionally you might also want to have a look at 12.04 maybe with Xubutnu desktop installed rather than gnome.

as for the drivers, if you had propriatay drivers installed before you would have to remove them first, before doing the upgrade.

whatthefunk
October 30th, 2012, 10:58 AM
I dont know if 10.04 is the best bet for you. End of life for 10.04 is April 2013 so youll just have to upgrade again then.

I would suggest moving to something like Lubuntu 12.04 or Xubuntu 12.04 which may run better on your old hardware.

As far as the graphics issue goes, well need some more info. What graphics card are you using?

Rob P.
October 30th, 2012, 06:57 PM
I'm at work now and not at the computer to check what card is in there.

I fussed around with it some more last night and I'm just not happy with the update. I think it's too bloated for my i386 chipset. Video stutters and stalls badly. No Java Runtime Environment and other programs are slow. HDD is almost constantly running and my swap files are maxed.

I looked at Lubuntu and am wondering if it can be installed on top of LTS without issues. If not, I'm going to try to reinstall Hardy over the update from my CD. Anyone know if I can do this or will I have to backup and wipe the HDD?

whatthefunk
October 31st, 2012, 12:54 AM
I'm at work now and not at the computer to check what card is in there.

I fussed around with it some more last night and I'm just not happy with the update. I think it's too bloated for my i386 chipset. Video stutters and stalls badly. No Java Runtime Environment and other programs are slow. HDD is almost constantly running and my swap files are maxed.

I looked at Lubuntu and am wondering if it can be installed on top of LTS without issues. If not, I'm going to try to reinstall Hardy over the update from my CD. Anyone know if I can do this or will I have to backup and wipe the HDD?

You can delete ubuntu-desktop and install lubuntu-desktop. That should give you LXDE which will run much faster on your system. Note that this will also replace all the default applications.

Going back to Hardy isnt such a good idea. Its unsupported so youll get no security updates.

Rob P.
October 31st, 2012, 02:57 AM
Ok, looked at the card. It's an nVidia Vanta LT.

I'm off from work tomorrow and I'm going to play with it some more. Tonite I'm D/L'ing the Lubuntu alternate 386 iso file and burning it to a DVD. I have to use the alternate install because I only have 371 mb of memory. (Apparently my computer has a few dead brain cells like I do.) Tomorrow I'll run it as a live CD and see what happens.

If that doesn't work, can I just D/L the nVidia driver packets and uninstall the Nouveau packages? Would Apt Get work better than the package mgr for this? If so what's the syntax?

NEED to get this resolved as I sometimes do work-from-home on this computer.

whatthefunk
October 31st, 2012, 03:26 AM
371 mb of RAM eh....youll never run a modern version of Ubuntu on that.

About alternate install CDs...I dont think they contain a LiveCD, but Im not sure. Anyway, with your hardware youll be lucky to get any liveCD to run.

Im really thinking that a fresh install of Lubuntu would be best for you. Lubuntu is designed for systems like yours and generally gives better support for older hardware. Installing it just might eliminate your graphics problem.

About your gaphics drivers....the current Nvidia drivers dont appear to support your Vanta card. Check out the list of supported devices for the most recent stable driver here:
http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/50196

This looks like the driver for you:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux-display-ia32-71.86.15-driver.html

WARNING: installing drivers manually can mess up your system so Id do all your backups beforehand. Be fully prepared to do a fresh install if this doesnt work. Generally, you can do it this way:
1. Download driver

2. Make driver file executable

chmod +x DRIVER_FILE_NAME

3. Go to virtual console by pressing CTRL + ALT + F1

4. Kill X server. Doing this depends on what display manager youre using.

sudo service XSERVER_NAME stop
To find XSERVER_NAME open a terminal and do:

less /etc/X11/default-display-manager
This will open a one line document that looks like this:

/usr/sbin/lightdm
The last entry, in my case lightdm, is your XSERVER_NAME.

5. Navigate to the directory where you downloaded the Nvidia driver to. Run the driver program

sudo sh ./DRIVER_FILE_NAME
This will take you through the command line install process.

6. Reboot

sudo reboot

Hopefully this will give you a working display. If it doesnt, you can try to purge the Nvidia driver and reinstall the nouveau one.

Rob P.
November 1st, 2012, 04:54 AM
Thanks for the help. Nothing I tried worked. :( I couldn't even burn the iso for lubuntu to a disk with Brasero. Incompatible format error. So, I re-installed Hardy, did all the upgrades and I'm back where I was as of last Monday after getting the scanner added in. Which means I'm stable and the system is working so problem solved. Thanks again. ***Edit*** Mods, I can't get the thread tools to show this as solved. I click on "thread tools" and I just get transported to the bottom of the page like a "page down" key was used.