Natty problem with console video

[Tom H]

On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 9:07 PM, Bruce Marshall <bmarsh at bmarsh.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday, April 27, 2011, Tom H wrote:
>> On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 8:00 PM, Bruce Marshall <bmarsh at bmarsh.com> wrote:
>> > On Wednesday, April 27, 2011, Tom H wrote:
>> >>
>> >> I've never seen "CTL-BKSP-Fx" to go to a console session. Do you mean
>> >> "Ctrl-Alt-Fx"?
>> >>
>> >> Unless you mean "Ctrl-Alt-BkSpc" to kill X and go to a console session?
>> >
>> > No wait....  what I really wanted to say was CTL-ALT-Fx where x is 1 thru
> 6
>>
>> I'm glad that you've clarified your answer because the previous one
>> was unclear. :)
>>
>> What are you trying to achieve with "vga=normal"? The "vga=..." option
>> is deprecated in grub2.
>>
>> I'd suggest that you set the following variables in
>> "/etc/default/grub" and run update-grub:
>>
>> GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=
>> GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=
>> GRUB_TERMINAL=console
>> GRUB_GFXMODE=
>> GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=
>
> I have those set, and grub is not the problem. If I let grub use it's gfx
> mode, I do not get any msgs at all nor do I get the splash screen.
>
> So I normally remove 'splash'  and 'quiet' so I can get the msgs...  and vga-
> normal was just an attempt to force a reasonable console mode.
>
> And it would be my guess that CTL-ALT-BkSpc doesn't work anymore. It does
> nothing when I try it.
>
> The problem remains.

The latter three "/etc/default/grub" variables above control the type
and resolution of the VTs, so grub isn't totally unrelated to your
problem. This looks like a KMS problem so you can try to set
"GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=nomodeset" for example or look into what settings
fit with your graphic card.

You can re-enable "Ctrl-Alt-BkSpc" with the "Key sequence to kill the
X server" in the Keyboard Layout section of System Settings. You
should also be able to enable it as a one-time setting (unless you put
it into you dot or X settings) with "setxkbmap -option
terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp".