Graphics Resolution- Upgrade /Blank Screen after reboot

[diamond_D]

OK here's my scenario

I have Ubuntu 10.10 working fine and then my Power Supply and video card blew up coincidently on the same weekend. I brought it to my local computer shop and they put in a Visiontek Radeon HD 4670 as a replacement graphics card.

I brought it home and threw back in my hard drives and booted, everything was fine.

I then decided to do a fresh install of 11.10, thus beginning my living nightmare. On the first reboot post install I get a black screen with a flashing cursor. I cannot get to the grub menu by either holding the shift key or rapid pressing the shift key during post.

I've tried numerous installation disks (different OS versions) all getting the same result.

I've found this thread to troubleshoot on how to get grub to appear from using the Live CD but am having difficulty.

I'm following the instructions from post #3 (second part) on the first page of this thread: "To mount an installed system from a LiveCD"
My boot partition is /dev/sda1
1. sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
2. sudo mount -o bind /dev /mnt/dev
3. sudo mount -o bind /sys /mnt/sys
4. sudo mount -t proc /proc /mnt/proc

Here's the first possible issue
5. sudo chroot /mnt /bin/bash
bash: groups: command not found

My command prompt then get switched from ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ to root@ubuntu:/#

How to I go about editing the /etc/default/grub file?
every command I type comes up as "Command not found"
ie: vi grub - bash: vi: command not found


This upgrade has been a pure living hell and has killed most of my weekend so far. Any help will be greatly appreciated and a for a solution I will claim you are at "God status" in my books.

[bjennworld]

I post this as it may help someone with a similar problems installing 64 bit Ubuntu with a Nvidia GeForce GT240 graphics card.

Ubuntu 11.10 and 12.04 Beta 2 Live CD's resulted in blank screen.

Downloaded Alternate CD which booted into low graphics mode and installed properly.

On first boot of new install blank screen appeared again.

Forced recovery mode on boot using left shift key and selected root shell.

Typed in 'restart' on command line.

It then booted into low resolution screen and was able to load Nvidia driver using Systems Settings/Additional Driver Option in the usual way.

Then rebooted normally into monitor default resolution.

I am not a Linux wizard - just spent sometime on internet searches and not giving up, trying anything that might seem to have a chance of working.

Linux will never go mass market if this sort of problem isn't eliminated.

[diamond_D]

Just so people know, it was a damn bios setting. Somehow my master and slave got flipped in reverse order when I swapped my drives out. That's why I could not get to grub. Issue resolved.

[bogan]

Hi!, MAFoElffen, EDIT: SEE NOTE at bottom of Post!!

A couple of queries about your Post #280 in this Thread, for re-installing Nvidia drivers after upgrades.

First: When I run:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential gcc-4.5 g++-4.5 libxi-dev libxmu-dev freeglut3-dev 
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-'uname -r'
sudo nvidia-installer --uninstall 
sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia-*

I get: 'gcc-4.5 not found'. Elsewhere I see references to 'gcc-4.6'. Should these entries be updated in the code of Post #280?

Second: The last line shows a long list of 'Selected: nvidia-*' entries, but they nearly all come up as: 'found but not installed so not removed'. After completing the re-installation, Synaptic Manager still shows a long list of nvidia files including out of date nvidia-current versions - but which does not include the latest nvidia-current 295.20 [ see below] nor 290.10 which I have been using successfully.

Should I remove all of these ?

These issues arose because with the latest 11.10 and 10.04 updates, a version of nvidia-current 295.20 was installed which messed up both of my installations and gave me a hung boot with a BusyBox [intramis] prompt, with 11.10, and an enforced recovery boot with 10.04.
Activating the driver in Additional Drivers had no effect.

I corrected one by using the P#280 code and downloading and running the latest driver v 295.40 from nvidia/downloads, and the other by using:

 nvidia-installer -f

Which installed 295.33!! though this was after [later than] the first effort.

Yet more confusion!
But at least your tuition enabled me to sort things out successfully.
I do not know what the differences are between the versions but the later two seem to work OK, both with the GT7650 card in my Vista m/c and the GT520 in the Win7 m/c, when installed by running the nvidia .run files.

Presumably there was something wrong with the Update-Manager installation of the nvidia-current driver, and this Post may help others with the same problem.

Edit.1: There are others too; see:http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...1#post11844097

EDIT.2: See also NVIDIA Bug Warning:http://phoronix.co/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTA4ODc

Chao!, bogan.

[bogan]

Hi! MAFoElffen,

This problem with the nvidia-current update is even more widespread than I knew when I Posted #984.
In the 'Ubuntu +1 (Precise Pangolin)' Forum there are even more reports of nvidia driver update problems:"Re: 12.04 -- April 14/15 Updates Nvidia Regression"http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1959416

EDit: There are also multiple queries in Nvidia NVnews FAQ's:http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/sear...archid=4590215

Do you have any insider news you can share? or on what prospects there are of a resolution?

Chao!, bogan.

[Wojo71]

Hey there,
Great thread. I followed your instructions and was able to get 11.10 working great on my Alienware m14x. I'd like to upgrade to 12.04. Will the upgrade to 12.04 incorporate the changes I made through this tutorial? Additionally, I installed Bumblebee 3.0 to address the power consumption problem and to allow 11.10 to use the Nvidia card. Like I stated earlier all is working well I'm just wondering if I should tempt fate or just leave well enough alone with 11.10.
Request advice. Thanks!
Mark

[bogan]

Hi!, Wojo.

You Posted:

Like I stated earlier all is working well I'm just wondering if I should tempt fate or just leave well enough alone with 11.10.

I think you would be well advised if you do the latter, and either install 12.04 to a different partition leaving 11.10 intact or run it from a LiveCD or USB to try it out first.. You would need to redo the Grub Customizer settings, and video driver probably as well, if you choose to tempt fate.

I did the update from 11.10 to 12.04 LTS on the first day of release, but on my back-up computer, so I still have my main machine unaltered, but with a Linux ext4 partition set up ready for 12.04.1, when the current flow of problems is, hopefully, reduced. [ See my Posts #985 &986 above.]

Chao!, bogan.

[Elzenbr8]

well, i'm not sure where to post it. but, it seems i have a bit similiar problem and might related to this topic.
i have tried 12.04, it's great. but its default resolution mismatch with my hardware. my display support screen resolution up to 1920x1080, and detected as well.
but, it's wider than the real 1920x1080 (16:9), so that i can only see half part of the top bar and the sidebar (unity).

to fix this, simply i need to lower the resolution to 1680x1050, which is 16:10. and as you know, it's not good resoulution to watch movie, which is almost in 16:9. but that's fine, it can be overrided by movie player.
the problem is, gdm resolution won't change. so, it's still wider and i can't see the top bar. but still, i can click on it.
i know that installing proprietary driver will fix this, in my case ati proprieatary driver. but i prefer ati open source driver on my side.

so, what would you suggest? (if possible, i want to use 16:9 instead of lowering to 16:10).

[reinhha1]

Great step by step instructions! Thanks!

I have upgraded to 12.04 via automatic upgrade.
I cannot get the image to boot (blank screen).
grub is OK.
I can get the previous unix version to run in recovery mode (rahter shaky).

Booting 12.04 in recovery mode displayes the message
firewire_ohci: Failed to set link Power Status

There is no firewire installed on this acer travelmate to my knowledge....

Any suggestions?

[Gr.Turtle]

I just did the distribution upgrade. It boots into the log in screen just fine. Then when i enter the password the screen goes to black, only leaving my mouse cursor. I hit Ctrl+alt+prnt scrn+K to get back to the log in and switched to 2D mode which works fine, just a brief flash of grey screen. Compiz encounters an error but I quit animating my desktop a while back, hd movies work, text appeared funny at first but I changed the screen resolution and when i changed it back the text looked fine. I guess my only question is that whatever the issue is (i.e. graphics driver), will i need to manually fix it or will a patch be put out eventually? I'm kind of a barebones guy, so I am really only worried about future crashes.