[wplug] ubuntu install - dies on X - RESOLVED

[Brandon Kuczenski]

On Mon, 9 May 2005, Brandon Kuczenski wrote:

> 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 problem was a mismatch between xorg.conf and the BIOS in terms of 
which video card to use.  In fact, the xorg.conf did not have a Device 
section for the Voodoo 5 card at all, only the integrated Intel adapter, 
and the BIOS was set to use the Voodoo5 card (which, peculiarly, worked 
from the console until startx was issued... )

I added a Device section for the Voodoo card, obtaining the PCI address 
from the Xorg log, which did detect it.  I specified in the Screen to use 
the Voodoo5 device instead of the Intel device, and that solved the 
problem on the next startx.

-Brandon