7.04 install won't boot because of video issues

[neander]

I know 7.04 is no longer supported, but I have a disk which booted 7.04 well about a year ago but now fails with x11 and xorg error messages. I need to get this box to boot because a software package I have installed on it which I need to use has not worked so far with later ubuntu distributions.

The graphics card is an nvidia 8400 gs. I know I had the driver for that installed. Can use the command line to disengage the nvidia driver, and restore a basic 800x600 driver (or better)? I'm not sure if the video failure I get means that it fails at that most basic level (ie it's not an nvidia driver problem). Nothing is wrong with the video card, works with windows xp fine.

I have tried this many times but it does not help:

dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

What else can I do? I realize that the title of this msg is a bit misleading - the box does boot, just not the graphical user interface.

[lisati]

And it worked well on the same machine before? If so, the disk might be dirty or some such problem that results in an error message that you're missing.

[neander]

Thanks for the reply. I had it working on this box before. I moved the disk to another pc for a while and it worked there after

dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

I've moved it back to the original box and now this. It's going to be a major prob for me to lose this ubuntu install...I've spent a good bit of time trying to get what I need going on later Ubuntus and it does not seem likely that I'll succeed.

[nstolar]

Thanks for the reply. I had it working on this box before. I moved the disk to another pc for a while and it worked there after

dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

I've moved it back to the original box and now this. It's going to be a major prob for me to lose this ubuntu install...I've spent a good bit of time trying to get what I need going on later Ubuntus and it does not seem likely that I'll succeed.

Do you know if it is the; Nvidia Driver 96 , The file size is 336mb. I am running Ubuntu 8.04, Not sure if it is the same or not.
Hope this was a help
nstolar

[neander]

I'm not sure what you're asking? I don't know what the orig nvidia driver might have been, if that's it, but it would have been from about 1.5 years ago.

If ubuntu detects that the current drivers are not viable, doesn't it just fall back to it's built in drivers? In any case can someone lead me through the steps involved to get to bare bones video drivers?

[Compyx]

If you want to try the Xorg driver for Nvidia cards, you can edit the xorg.conf file.
The file is located in /etc/X11. You should look for a line that says 'Section "Device"', there should be a line 'Driver "nvidia"', change that to 'Driver "nv"' and if that doesn't work 'Driver "vesa"'.

If X boots the problem was indeed the nvidia driver, if not: posting the '/var/log/Xorg.0.log' file might be a good idea.

[neander]

Hmmm I used nano to edit xorg.conf like so

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Now it won't boot. Gets stuck at some point in the boot process without any error message.

[DavidTangye]

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

If after running 'dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg' (or 'dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg') /etc/X11/xorg.conf is quite empty, eg the Video Device section has no useful parameters in it like you are indicating above, perhaps you need to try another way to configure X.
I have twice now found it useful to install puppy linux (onto 2 different laptops), and get it to configure X and produce an /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. Its X config utility seems to work out display hardware and configure them for X much better than ubuntu does.

[neander]

Thanks but right now it won't even get to a login prompt. Not sure what the deal is with this thing.