Video drivers messed up--this newbie is stuck

[afish01]

I am new to Linux (been trying it out for about a month now). I had everything running pretty well in 7.10 with the previous version of KDE. I successfully upgraded to 8.04 recently but had a few problems with KDE 4.0 (not directly related to my current problem) so I've been switching back and forth between the two versions of KDE.

Being the curious person that I am, I thought I would see if I could tweak the graphics drivers (even though everything was working fine ) I noticed that the OS was using a driver other than one made for ATI (I have an integrated ATI graphics card). I think it was fglrx or something like that.

Being the fool that I am, I switched to an ATI-specific driver, then restarted the computer. Of course, everything was screwed up then. I couldn't get it to load into the desktop, but the GUI login screen looked fine.

I read online about the Envy driver-installer program, so going into the safe mode console, I installed and ran the "core" text-based version of envyng. I eventually got it to install new drivers, but when I restarted again, it wouldn't even make it to the GUI login--in fact, it doesn't even stop at any sort of command prompt.

I'm a little puzzled about what to try next. I would like avoid reinstalling kubuntu if I can, because I do have some music on that partition that would be a pain to get back on there.

Let me know if you need any other info. This is my first time posting here so I'm sure I left something out.

Thanks.

[afish01]

Re: Video drivers messed up--this newbie is stuck

I forgot to mention that this is a dual-boot XP/Kubuntu machine running two physical hard drives, one for each OS.

[Rog131]

Re: Video drivers messed up--this newbie is stuck

Something to try:

Press Ctrl + Alt + F1 (or F2...6). This should start virtual console.

From Virtual console

a virtual console (VC, sometimes virtual terminal, VT) is a conceptual combination of the keyboard and the display for a user interface. The concrete combination is the system console of the computer, where the user can switch between the virtual consoles to access multiple unrelated user interfaces. Usually in Linux, the first six virtual consoles provide a text terminal with a login prompt to a unix shell. The graphical X Window System starts in the seventh virtual console.

Log in the text mode, look errors and warnings in the xorg log file:

Just looking errors:

:~$ grep "(EE)" /var/log/Xorg.0.log

Just looking warnings:

:~$ grep "(WW)" /var/log/Xorg.0.log

What kind of errors / warning do you have ?

I noticed that the OS was using a driver other than one made for ATI (I have an integrated ATI graphics card). I think it was fglrx or something like that.

fglrx, the latest is AMD (Ati) Catalyst 8.5

Video driver for the ATI graphics accelerators
Video driver for the ATI Radeon and FireGL graphics accelerators.

This version of the ATI driver officially supports:
* RADEON X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900
* RADEON 8500, 9000, 9100, 9200, 9500, 9550, 9600, 9700, 9800
* RADEON X800, X700, X600, X550, X300 series (AGP and PCI Express)
* MOBILITY RADEON 9000, 9200, 9600, 9800, X700
* MOBILITY RADEON 9000/9100 IGP Series
* FireGL 8700, 8800, E1, E2, X1, X2, X3, Z1, T2
* MOBILITY FireGL 9100, T2
* RADEON XPRESS 200


This package provides 2D display drivers
and hardware accelerated OpenGL for 1.3.0.

I read online about the Envy driver-installer program, so going into the safe mode console, I installed and ran the "core" text-based version of envyng. I eventually got it to install new drivers, but when I restarted again, it wouldn't even make it to the GUI login--in fact, it doesn't even stop at any sort of command prompt.

Envy will detect, download and install the right version of the proprietary driver for your ATI (= fglrx) or Nvidia card...

BUT note that: AMD (Ati) drivers are highly experimental . It would be wise to check first forums (Phoronix is a good one) are there problems / solutions. Latest: AMD Catalyst 8.5 For Linux


Problems: black screen with kubuntu 8.04 x86_64 and fglrx 8.5 (phoronix)

[afish01]

Re: Video drivers messed up--this newbie is stuck

I got it fixed. I ended up uninstalling every version of envyng that I could think of, then reinstalled envyng-core and had that reinstall the graphics drivers. That did the trick.

I do appreciate the info posted by Rog131. It was very helpful!