There have been a number of reports regarding
blank screens at
startup pre and post installation on the new Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid”
release. It seems there are some incompatibilities with some video drivers,
particularly (not
surprising) some ATI and nVidia.
Also in the mix are
some older Intel cards. This post outlines a workaround you can try in
order to get your video working properly again.
Booting from CD
This section outlines how to workaround the video issue while booting
from the CD. Your mileage may vary, depending on your video card, but
hopefully this steers you in the right direction:
- At the install screen press ‘F6‘ and insert one of the
options below, depending on your hardware.
- On first boot after
install, press e to edit the GRUB menu.
- Using the arrow
keys to navigate, delete quiet and splash
and again insert one of the options below.
- Press Ctrl
and X to boot.
The suggested options that I have found are hardware specific. Here
is a list:
- Order Intel video card: i915.modeset=1 or
i915.modeset=0
- nVidia: nomodeset
- Generic: xforcevesa
Hopefully one of these options will get you up and running. Keep
reading now to make these changes persistent!
GRUB
You’ll want to change these settings in GRUB so they’ll automatically
be applied on each reboot.
To do so, follow
the steps below:
- Edit the /etc/default/grub file. You will need Admin
privileges to do so (sudo)
- Find this line:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash”
- Replace with:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash
<option>”
For example, if I had an older Intel model, my GRUB configuration
would read:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash i915.modeset=1″
Save your changes and you should get proper graphics on each reboot.
UPDATE: Based on a lot of user feedback I am reminded that you
need to run ‘update-grub’ after you make changes.
Feeback
If you have any additional suggestions, please leave them as comments
here. Different hardware often needs different options, and it would be
nice to cover as many as needed in a central place. Good luck!
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