Re: Newbie video problems

On Monday 03 December 2007 10:06:30 andy baxter wrote:
James Takac wrote:
After the splash Ubuntu screen, I see about four of the login screen
horizontally, and it goes down about 80% of the screen, with gibberish
underneath that. The screen has "untuubuntuubuntuubuntuub" going across,
with 4 logos, and a half username box, 3 username boxes, and another
half username box.

Ok, sounds like the driver have been switched to either the wrong one or
wrong mode.

Use CTRL-ALT-F1 to get a console. You'll have to login there. Don't worry
that it wont echo the password, that's normal

next type "sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf" without the quotes. You'll be
asked for your password again. Scroll down to where you see the graphic
card idintified. You should see something resembling the following

Section "Device"
Identifier "Generic Video Card"
Driver "nv"
Busid "PCI:1:0:0"
Option "AddARGBVisuals" "True"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
Option "NoLogo" "True"
EndSection

What does yours list there? Take note more so of the driver here.

Below that will be the monitor and default screnn areas. Might help to
report back what they say as well

At the very worst, where mine says "nv" can be replaced with "vesa" just
to get a working screen. For nvidia cards it's usually "nvidia" for 3d
support or "nv" for 2d acceleration

When making a change use CTRL-O to write back to disk. CTRL-X will exit
back to the prompt at which you can type "sudo reboot" to reboot the
system for changes to take effect for now

Do you recall exactly what you did before things went awry?

I was going to suggest exactly the same thing, but realised you can do
the same thing in a way that may be easier for a new user by running
dpkg-reconfigure.

I.e.:

get a terminal using ctrl-alt-f1
log in as a normal user.
type:
sudo -i
and type your user's password to become root.
then type:
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

This will start a text mode menu system which lets you reconfigure the
graphics card. If you say yes whenever it asks you to autodetect
something, and choose the selected option the rest of the time, you
should get a working configuration. If not, try setting the driver to
'vesa' instead of (probably) 'nv' when that option comes up.

You need to type:
/etc/init.d/gdm restart

to restart the graphics system (x server) after you've changed the
configuration. You shouldn't need to reboot.



Hi Andy

You forgot to stop the gdm with
/etc/init.d/gdm stop
before restarting it

However good point that it may well be easier for him as a newbie. Hell, I'm
no expert myself ;)

James

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