New install of Karmic, opening screen doesn't fully load, blinks on and off

[reidun]

Hi,

I just installed Karmic on my computer from the Live CD. Now it boots, but the opening screen doesn't fully load, (in other words, theoutline of the box for the password is there, but nothing in it), and the screen blinks on and off. Then after the screen goes to sleep if I don't move the mouse or hit any keys it won't come back on. I have to push the power button to get it to shut down.

The Live CD worked great in testing mode, and for the installation. I don't know if I have a bad CD and should make another one. I did the installation twice and both times it does the same thing.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[reidun]

Re: New install of Karmic, opening screen doesn't fully load, blinks on and off

Ok, Just for kicks, I reinstalled Hardy from the Live CD, and it works just fine. So does that indicate it's a problem with my CD or the file on it, or is it a computer compatibility problem. I have a Compaq Presario SR1224NX with a 2.8GHz Pentium 4 and 512mb of ram. Any thoughts?

[rfakhrai]

Re: New install of Karmic, opening screen doesn't fully load, blinks on and off

That hardware should be compatible with 9.10. Did you get an md5 sum from the iso before you burned it? And, there should be an option to check the disc in the main menu of the livecd.

If all of that checks out, then you'll have to drop into a command-line login and try to diagnose the problem. I have no idea what would cause this, though, so I'll leave it here for some pros.

[reidun]

Re: New install of Karmic, opening screen doesn't fully load, blinks on and off

Thanks for that. I checked the md5 sum of the downloaded file and it matched perfectly. I then checked the md5 sum for the file on the cd and it matched as well. I had also previously checked the disc for errors before i installed it and it said it was fine. Now at least I know that I don't have to bother downloading again and burning another cd.

Now what?

[dibl]

Re: New install of Karmic, opening screen doesn't fully load, blinks on and off

I have a couple of thoughts:

1. Kubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx is a month from release -- are you sure you want to invest your time and energy installing 9.10? You can get a "daily build" ISO image of 10.04 from here: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/daily-live/current/

I've been impressed with how stable and solid it is, as a Beta level OS.

2. You might want to try the "Alternate Install" version of the ISO image. Make sure you burn it at a slow speed -- 4X, or no more than 8X. It sounds like there is some defect in the installation or the CD, even though you say the md5sum is correct. I have not seen a report of the kind of video problem that you are seeing -- and it does appear to be a video problem. If you boot "Recovery Mode", I expect you will get a character mode login prompt, right?

[reidun]

Re: New install of Karmic, opening screen doesn't fully load, blinks on and off

Thanks, dibl, I have been thinking that I might just wait for 10.04. Maybe I will try your suggestion of the beta version. Then when the actual version comes out do I do an upgrade from the beta to the regular version?

Just for some more information, I reinstalled Hardy, then upgraded via the upgrade manager to Intrepid, then to Jaunty and then to Karmic. Both Intrepid and Jaunty worked just fine, I used Konquerer to browse the net a bit in both and no problems. However, Karmic does the same exact thing it did when I installed from the live cd. This seems strange to me, and I'm hoping that if I go to the effort of downloading and installing Lucid, it doesn't do the same thing.

I don't know how to boot in recovery mode. I don't get an option to do that when it boots, and don't know how to force it to. Maybe someone can tell me how.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[oshunluvr]

Re: New install of Karmic, opening screen doesn't fully load, blinks on and off

I'm sure this is solvable if you want to do the work. Start with looking at the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file and seeing what the errors are. They're marked with an (EE).

To do this - boot to the live CD, mount your hard drive root partition somewhere, navigate to /var/log and use kate or some other text editor to view it.

My belief is this is a video problem, so do some searching on your video card and current xorg to see what driver should be used.

Also - if it boots, try going to a text console via ALT-F1 and see if you get there. If you do, log in, switch to root (sudo -i), and try restarting kdm (service kdm restart). This will likely send you back where you were. Then do ALT-F1 again and look at any error messages that are there.

[reidun]

Re: New install of Karmic, opening screen doesn't fully load, blinks on and off

Ok, I looked in my Xorg.0.log file and found these errors:

drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card0
[drm[ failed to load kernel module "i915"
(EE) intel(0): [drm] Failed to open DRM device for : No such file or directory
(EE) intel (0): Failed to become DRM master.

Then further down:

(EE) intel(0): Failed to initialize kernel memory manager

I noticed that I don't have the current Xorg release. Should I try to fix this, and if so, how?

And how do I figure out what my video card is without opening the computer up?

Thanks!

[skunk]

Re: New install of Karmic, opening screen doesn't fully load, blinks on and off

And how do I figure out what my video card is without opening the computer up?

Open a konsole

lspci

One of the lines should be your video card

[oshunluvr]

Re: New install of Karmic, opening screen doesn't fully load, blinks on and off

I'm betting it's an Intel 945gm

[reidun]

Re: New install of Karmic, opening screen doesn't fully load, blinks on and off

Ok, I did what skunk said and here's the line that I think is the video card:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device (rev 03)

Not sure where to find a driver or how to update it from the Live CD, which is all I can use right now.

Thanks!

[oshunluvr]

Re: New install of Karmic, opening screen doesn't fully load, blinks on and off

So you can't get to the command line console when booting from the computer?

To get your boot menu during boot, hold down the SHIFT key during boot. We need to boot to your hard drive to do the updates. It is probable that Lucid won't give you these issues so if you're just playing around, you might try it. It is still in alpha so don't plan on keeping it forever.

The correct driver is "Intel". I little web searching reveals this card and some version of xorg have a DRI issue. I have a computer with the 945gm chip and it had a similar problem that went away after the last round of updates. To find out how much video ram is available and more detail on your card try:

lspci -vv

IMO: Next step is do a full upgrade of all your packages. This can be done in the text console by these commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

After you do the upgrade, then do:

sudo Xorg -configure

to get a new clean xorg.conf file and reboot.
Then whether or not your video starts working we need to go through your log file and figure out what's working and what isn't. Then configuring xorg.conf for the best output.

[reidun]

Re: New install of Karmic, opening screen doesn't fully load, blinks on and off

Oshunluvr, Thanks! I'm working on doing what you said right now. Meanwhile, I thought I'd just post on here that my Xorg Video driver is version 2.9.0, which was released in 9/2009. It looks like there are a couple of newer drivers since then.

Problem: Holding down shift doesn't get the boot menu up. It just does the same exact thing as before. So I wasn't able to get very far with your instructions.

Also, I have been trying to download a Lucid daily build, both the desktop version and the alternate version and the downloads keep failing for some reason.

So far I'm being foiled on all attempts !

Thank you!

[oshunluvr]

Re: New install of Karmic, opening screen doesn't fully load, blinks on and off

Well. kudos on keeping your chin up!

Try editing your /boot/grub/grub.cfg manually from the livecd.

Change Default=0 to Default=1 and see if it boots you to safe mode.

Another idea: add "modeset=0" to your kernel line in grub.cfg and see if that works

[reidun]

Re: New install of Karmic, opening screen doesn't fully load, blinks on and off

Ok, Another foiled attempt: I don't have a grub.cfg file in my /boot/grub folder. I asked it to show hidden files and there is nothing. There are several files in there, but the only one with grub is grubenv. There is one called menu.lst that seems like it's similar to grub.cfg from what I can gather by googling.

So I tried modifying the Default=0 in menu.lst, but it's a read only file and won't let me save changes.

I really appreciate your help, and I hope you aren't getting too annoyed with my ignorance.

Thanks!