Absolutely Tech

May 1, 2010

[SOLVED] Blank screen while booting Lucid Lynx on older ATI graphics


I had tried the beta version of Lucid Lynx few weeks back but it didn’t boot, it gave me blank screen with no cursor everytime I tried to boot up. Even the menu didn’t show. I thought there must be a bug since its beta. When final version released day before yesterday, I quickly downloaded and burned a CD only to find the same problem while booting. I couldn’t even see the menu. The problem is thought to be associated with ATI cards… mine is ATI x1250.


After doing some searches on google and some experimenting I found a solution to this problem. Adding a nomodeset parameter while booting solves the problem. For my even the menu wasn’t appearing, but pressing F6 made it appear for me.

As soon as you see this screen press F6 to bring the language selection menu. Select appropriate language and press enter. Now, you’ll see the boot menu. Press F6 to bring another menu to select kernel parameters and select nomodeset from the menu. Here’s what it would look like:

Now, press Esc and press enter to boot. If you’ve done everything right, it’ll boot right into the desktop or ubiquity-installer… whatever you’ve chosen.

However, after installation you may face this problem again. To solve that edit the file /etc/default/grub.
Find the line:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash”

and change it to:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash nomodeset”

Save the file.

After this execute sudo update-grub2 in terminal to make changes to grub.cfg automatically

Feel free to comment if you have any questions/doubts.

Cheers!

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Category: Ubuntu (Linux)

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  • Dàrent

    Thank you, i had the same problem on a radeon x1300 and your tip solved it, but no completely.

    The line you refer apears like that in my grub:

    linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-21-generic root=UUID=e84a5fea-e6b4-43e4-bff5-10d32233f1bb ro vga=792 splash quiet splash

    so i had to change it, deleting vga=792 and splash. Now it’s like yours:

    linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-21-generic root=UUID=e84a5fea-e6b4-43e4-bff5-10d32233f1bb ro quiet splash nomodeset

    Because if i simply try adding nomodeset whitout removing the vga and first splash word, ubuntu doesn’t boot…

    … The thing it’s than by removing the vga option, i’ve lost all the tty, When I do ctrl+alt+f# it apears like corrupted… all full of stripes in diferents colors. Well, at least the desktop now works fine, if you know what’s causing my problem, please comment.

    Thank you :)

    P.D. I have a litle netbook whit another graphic card, and the kms works perfectly on it… it’s a shame than we had to deactivate it to make it work.

    P.D2: Excuse my poor english :)

  • Dàrent

    Thank you, i had the same problem on a radeon x1300 and your tip solved it, but no completely.

    The line you refer apears like that in my grub:

    linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-21-generic root=UUID=e84a5fea-e6b4-43e4-bff5-10d32233f1bb ro vga=792 splash quiet splash

    so i had to change it, deleting vga=792 and splash. Now it’s like yours:

    linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-21-generic root=UUID=e84a5fea-e6b4-43e4-bff5-10d32233f1bb ro quiet splash nomodeset

    Because if i simply try adding nomodeset whitout removing the vga and first splash word, ubuntu doesn’t boot…

    … The thing it’s than by removing the vga option, i’ve lost all the tty, When I do ctrl+alt+f# it apears like corrupted… all full of stripes in diferents colors. Well, at least the desktop now works fine, if you know what’s causing my problem, please comment.

    Thank you :)

    P.D. I have a litle netbook whit another graphic card, and the kms works perfectly on it… it’s a shame than we had to deactivate it to make it work.

    P.D2: Excuse my poor english :)

  • Dàrent

    Ah, I forgot: You must know than file /boot/grub/grub.conf is autogenerated by update-grub each time you install a kernel… so don’t forget than you have to edit it again each time a new kernel appears, or the nomodeset option will be deleted… am I wrong?

    See you

  • Dàrent

    Ah, I forgot: You must know than file /boot/grub/grub.conf is autogenerated by update-grub each time you install a kernel… so don’t forget than you have to edit it again each time a new kernel appears, or the nomodeset option will be deleted… am I wrong?

    See you

  • http://www.techmindz.com Deepak Mittal

    Thanks for clarifying about the vga option. That would help others too looking for a solution

    Updating a kernel updates grub.conf, and uses the default kernel parameters mentioned in /etc/default/grub.

    I’ll update my post to reflect this. :)

  • http://www.techmindz.com Deepak Mittal

    Thanks for clarifying about the vga option. That would help others too looking for a solution

    Updating a kernel updates grub.conf, and uses the default kernel parameters mentioned in /etc/default/grub.

    I’ll update my post to reflect this. :)

  • http://www.techmindz.com Deepak Mittal

    I’ve updated the post with correct way to do it.

  • http://www.techmindz.com Deepak Mittal

    I’ve updated the post with correct way to do it.

  • Dennisspam

    This fixed my problem, on a Fujitsu s6110 laptop. I could only see the screen if I put in nomodeset in that command line. I found the solution just searching around on “blank screen” problems.

    But I couldn’t find the way to set it permanently since I couldn’t find the grub menu.lst

    Thanks!

  • http://profiles.google.com/animaletdesequia Dàrent Animaulet

    You can use grub-customizer. It’s in the repos and can modify the grub (or burg) configuration with a gui.

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