[wplug] Ubuntu - Video fails on boot.

[Patrick Weber]

Can you change the runlevel from the grub menu to boot to a terminal?  From there you can at least see what driver is installed. Can you ssh in?

I recently installed Ubuntu on an ati video chipset and had some problems with the default radeon driver. The driver provided by amd (fglrx) works better for me.  There is a Ubuntu wiki on the amd support site to aid installation. 

-Pat

On May 9, 2011, at 7:02 PM, "L. A. Weber" <laweber at verizon.net> wrote:

> This is an add on video card, the motherboard does not have video chips.
> 
> I first tried the install using the desktop version and then the server 
> version.  Both did the same thing.
> 
> As I said 10.x did this to me on old Compaq PCs with only onboard video a 
> year ago.  It also occured with Fedora 13, and 14.  I changed PC's and 
> scraped the Compaq's.
> 
> I find this so odd, as in the past it seemed that Linux was missing drivers 
> for new equipment but supported 3 and 4 year old equipment.
> 
> Even if I have to add a driver, I don't know if that can be done if I can't 
> boot up.
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Robert E. Coutch" <robert.coutch at verizon.net>
> To: <wplug at wplug.org>
> Sent: Monday, May 09, 2011 4:12 PM
> Subject: Re: [wplug] Ubuntu - Video fails on boot.
> 
> 
>> Is this an video card added to the system and does the system have 
>> on-board
>> video?
>> If so, the on-board video may be getting priority and the video may appear
>> there.
>> 
>> Older ATi chipsets are supported unless they removed modules from the 
>> server
>> version to streamline it.
>> 
>> 
>> On Monday 09 May 2011 07:16:44 am Weber, Lawrence A wrote:
>>> I have been having trouble installing Ubuntu 10.x and 11.x, and the newer
>>> Fedora distros.
>>> 
>>> This weekend I tried installing Ubuntu 11.04 Server on a PC with an ATI
>>> 9600 Pro video card.  During installation the screen mode is a low res
>>> text mode.  After the installation the system boots to a black screen.
>>> Booting into GRUB shows a few menu item but all of the options lead to a
>>> black screen.  Is the ATI chip set not supported?  Can the support be
>>> added?
>>> 
>>> A web search of this problem returned a bunch of cases where the system
>>> booted to at least a text screen where drivers could be changed.  I 
>>> don't
>>> get a usable interface.
>>> 
>>> I tried the CD on another PC and the installation was complete and 
>>> operated
>>> properly.  I don't know what video chipset it uses.
>>> 
>>> Lawrence A. Weber
>>> Senior Engineer
>>> 
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