11.04 upgrade or reinst causes white terminal screen and endless restart of X server.

[tbst594]

I'm having lots of trouble with 11.04.
Note: everything used to work beautifully on 10.10 for me.
I first upgraded and ran into all the problem below, then reinstalled clean and still have the same issues.

1. Terminal screen is unreadable after grub menu.
The screen is all white and text is garbage looking.
My graphics card is an nvidia fx5200.
If I edit the boot option for linux and remove the line
'set gfxpayload = $linux_gfx_mode', the terminal looks normal again.


2. Unity or Compiz or both are broken for me.

Regardless of whether I fix the issue in 1 or leave it there, after booting into X11 my desktop looks like it is blinking. I think my unity keeps restarting. If I disable compiz and use meta city the screen is stable but I have no menus making it useless.

NOTE: I didn't explicitly install any nvidia drivers, not sure if it did it install it automatically as part of the isntallation.

I don't care for Unity (even though it looks kinda nice). I just want my X11 working again with HW acceleration. I am happy to go back to a working gnome except I don't know how.

After the upgrade, I was able to switch my driver from nvidia to vesa in xorg.conf and get something usable (but horribly slow), I think it was classic and not unity. However a fresh isntall has a stub for xorg.conf with nothing much in it.

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If all else fails, I will reinstall 10.10 and wait for a more stable 11 release.

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Update:

Things aren't as horrible as I thought.
I used to tick automatic login which took it straight to unity which meant I ran into 2. and made this version unusable.

If I untick this option on installation I can at least switch to classic and use my desktop.

[tbst594]

Regarding 2.

OK, Classic (with and without effects) works.
I was able to install my nvidia 173 driver and it works fast and beautifully.

Unity still is broken and reboot continuously.

I have compiz working on classic mode, so I think the issue is with Unity.

[tbst594]

OK, the problem with 2 seems to repro when enabling unity plugin options for compizconfig settings manager.
When I enable this feature, my classic mode also starts blinking.

Any ideas ?
I'd like to give Unity a try since it looks pretty sleek.

[tbst594]

Last reply for now

I was able to get Unity 2D working properly.
Good enough for me to determine if I like it better than gnome or not.

So it is only with the 3D version which is unstable.
Definitely needs to be sorted.

[klaas.holwerda]

I have the same with GeForce FX Go5200 on medion Notebook.
Half of the startups gives a garbled black/white garbled text like output.
Sometimes i manage to get it right and in rescue mode, i can start from the command line in graphics mode using: sudo service gdm start This gives me the old login window, and i can choose classic. In non rescue mode i get nowhere.

After the upgrade i initially did get a flashing classic screen after startup, and a dialog was shown to report a problem. After a reset the problems started.

[gee42]

Dell Dimension 8300 plus fx5200 with the same problems as above: white screen with garbled black text after restart from the first boot. The first boot ended post gdm login in a blank screen (with 11.04 desktop background I think) and a couple of flashing squares which I think were some welcome messages. I think someone else described the scene as if the X display was restarting every few seconds - this could have been the case.

Now stuck with white screen and garbled black text even in recovery mode. The only legible text is if I hold shift during the boot I do see a normal grub screen but after selecting recovery mode it goes to the black/white mess.

A bit stuck - suggestions welcome . . .

Thanks.

[jarruda]

I'm going to jump on the bandwagon here. Same exact problem with white console and black garbage characters.

I'm running an antique rig, Nvidia video card, I think something like the 6600GT (yeah, that old).

EDIT:
I tried was tbst did and removed the set gfxpayload line. This gave me back my normal black terminal, but the boot hangs after "Checking battery state... [OK]"

EDIT 2:
Tried doing the same thing in recovery mode and it managed to get me to the a login prompt. I logged in and tried starting X, and I found out the error that it was receiving has to do with external power being attached to the card. The computer's been in storage for a while so it's possible that I didn't plug the card in to the power supply... going to check this out right now. Looks like it can be overridden with "NoPowerConnectorCheck" in the X config file.

EDIT 3:
Yep. Molex connector for my video card was unplugged. This fixed all of my issues. No white terminal or anything.

[netgooroo]

ok, I just installed Natty a couple days ago and I experienced most, if not all, of what is being discused in this form.

Here, you will find the fix for the Grub issue of not being able to use, or see it... grub issue

I am still researching the "white screen" issue and will post up if/when I do find a fix for it..

On the unity "issue" not working, of course, what has been stated already, is you can opt to boot into Ubuntu classic.. Also, you can install the package Cairo Dock. It's fast and easy to use and you can opt for it to start on boot up.. here's a pick and download page.. Cairo Dock Debian page

This package IS available in Synaptic so, feel free to try it out.

Hope all that helps..

Netgooroo

[hamiljf]

I have what seems to be a similar problem. System is working fine and then the screen goes completely white, with just a mouse cursor wandering around. Happens with both Unity and Classic. Messing with keys doesn't seem to help. System is still running in the background (I can webmin into it). This installation is completely 'fresh'. The Xserver may or may not be looping: can't really tell, but cpu usage is pretty low.
(BTW... two systems... 11.04 used as a server, 10.04 used on laptop)

[netgooroo]

I just ran across a fix for the black background on the Cairo dock.. so, here ya go.. Cairo dock black BG fix

Hope that helps out.

Netgooroo