Kubuntu doesn't boot; shows "_"

[fearpi]

I installed Kubuntu 6.06, and all appeared to go well. I select it from GRUB, and the loading screen appears, and seems to go normally until the screen goes entirely black, except for one blinking underscore. The underscore then becomes solid and the system hangs. I can boot into Recovery Mode and come to a command prompt, but startx fails to work. I do not remember exactly what happened when I tried startx, so I'll do it again and post back here.

I am sure that it is not an issue with a corrupt CD, because this happens with Xubuntu as well.

[Rob]

Re: Kubuntu doesn't boot; shows "_"

Are you using a multiple monitor setup? Or perhaps you have a system with an onboard video card and also an AGP or PCI add-in video card?

[fearpi]

Re: Kubuntu doesn't boot; shows "_"

I had a hunch it was related to that. Here is my setup:

I have an onboard graphics device that I do not have a monitor connected to, and I have a PCI GeForce MX 100/200 that I do have a monitor connected to.

xorg.conf has the name of the onboard device in it, but not the PCI card.

[Rob]

Re: Kubuntu doesn't boot; shows "_"

There ya go. Kubuntu is being displayed on the onboard card...or else Kubuntu is confused about which VGA to display to. I don't know any way to fix this other than using the onboard video only.

I have a Dell GX110. It has some crappy i810 onboard video + an Nvidia TNT 16MB PCI card. I have tried and tried to get my computer to display on the TNT but it will never work...I always get the cursor problem, like you have.

So, I gave up and I just use the junky onboard video.

[fearpi]

Re: Kubuntu doesn't boot; shows "_"

Success, Rob! I hope this helps you as well:

Boot into windows. Right-click My Computer, go to Properties. Click the Hardware tab, and then the Device Manager button. Expand "Display adapters" and right-click the device you want to use. Go to Properties. Now, under the General tab, should be a line that reads "Location: PCI Slot 2 (PCI bus 1, device 13, function 0)" or something similar. Take note of this line.

Now boot into Recovery Mode of kubuntu. type:

vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Find a line that reads:

Section "Device"

Optionally, change Identifier to the correct name of the device.

Change Driver to the correct driver. I have an NVidia card, so mine becomes "nv".

And finally, the important part: Change BusID to the value that you wrote down. For example, mine was "PCI Slot 2 (PCI bus 1, device 13, function 0)" so I change my line to:

BusID "PCI:1:13:0"

Let me know if this works for you as well.

[Rob]

Re: Kubuntu doesn't boot; shows "_"

Congrats, I am glad you figured it out.  Unfortunately for me my Linux PC (Dell GX110) only has Kubuntu on it.  I have another PC (an AMD 2800XP) but it's WinXP only.  So I don't really have any way of finding out the hardware address of my PCI card on the Dell.

But if I do find the address of it I'll be sure to refer to this post.  Good info.