[wplug] ubuntu install - dies on X

[Brandon Kuczenski]

I am working on getting my friend across the hall running on the latest 
Ubuntu disribution.  He's never used Linux before and he has an old 
computer (a P-III 667-MHz) that he would like to use for mundane computer 
tasks.  The only unusual thing about his system is the fact that he has 
two graphics cards: the integrated card in his motherboard, and a Voodoo 5 
PCI card.

I installed the latest Ubuntu from its installation download ISO.  It took 
quite awhile to chunk through all the packages it had to install, but then 
the big moment came when it started GDM -- or, as it happens in this case, 
failed to.

No clue what went wrong.  It just goes to a blank screen and sits 
indefinitely.  Reboot leads to the same thing: normal startup process, and 
then a blank screen.

The thing is, it boots from LILO (for some reason, the installer could not 
successfully install grub, with no explanation given -- but installing 
LILO worked okay) straight into Runlevel 2, and never gives me a chance to 
interrupt the boot process to specify a text-only runlevel.

When it starts GDM, the screen just dies.  Alt-F1 or Ctrl-Alt-F1 do 
nothing (nor any of the other function keys).  It just sits there.  I have 
no idea what to do.

I can boot into Knoppix just fine, and I guess that will be the tool I use 
to debug the problem... but I don't know what to look for.  It seems like 
if the X server failed to start, it would at least fail verbosely and kick 
me back to a console login, but it doesn't.  The system becomes totally 
unresponsive.

My friend has been very forgiving, but I feel like this will be a black 
eye for Linux if I can't get it fixed.  Any ideas?

Thanks,
Brandon