New System Problem

[Nigel Henry]

On Thursday 14 August 2008 15:15, Young wrote:
> Pastor JW wrote:
> > On Wednesday 13 August 2008 08:08:19 pm Young wrote:
> >> I just built a new system and installed Ubuntu 8.04.01-alternate-amd64.
> >>
> >> The system boots into a fractured graphics image with the Ubuntu logo
> >> repeating 5 times across the screen. Each repeat is just horizontal
> >> lines like a bad version of the AT&T globe logo. There's also a lot of
> >> garbage on the screen, and no evidence of a cursor pointer.
> >>
> >> The 8.04.1-desktop-amd64 suffers the same problem.
> >>
> >> The install ran fine & the 8.04-desktop-i386 runs in live mode without a
> >> problem.
> >>
> >> Memory tests ran without a problem for over 75 minutes, but with 4GB I
> >> wasn't going to wait for it to finish.
> >>
> >>  Intel Pentium Dual Core E2200 Allendale 2.2GHz 1MB L2 Cache
> >>
> >>
> >> Any help would be appreciated.
> >
> > I am not understanding at all.  If you have the graphics ability, why in
> > the world are you using the alternate install which does not support
> > graphics??? The reason for the alternate install is to put Ubuntu on a
> > machine which has limited or obsolete graphics abilities such as older
> > boxes and/or server boxes.  What you are needing is the stuff which can
> > read your more advanced graphics and implement it, missing from the
> > alternate install as it really is most useful to CLI user.
>
> I've never heard anything about the Alternate Install having fewer
> graphics drivers. I always thought it traded the live capability for
> more choices. I've used the Alt installer (i386 version) before so I
> could better manage the way I wanted partitions set up.
> Besides, I couldn't use the desktop/live version because it suffers from
> the same problem.
>
> Mark

I too on a new machine that I've built, get a load of garbage at the top of 
the screen when the bootup gets as far as starting X. These are horizontal 
lines of various colours, which looks like it should be text, then the 
machine totally locks up. Mouse pointer is still there. A hard reset is 
necessary.

I've had problems installing, and post install rebooting with several distros 
on this new machine (Kubuntu GG 7.10, Fedora 8, Archlinux, Kubuntu HH 8.04, 
and Fedora 9), only Kubuntu Breezy installed with no problems, but that's 
using a lot earlier 2.6.12 kernel.

To boot the live HH 8.04, I had to add acpi=off to the kernel boot line, which 
got me to the KDE desktop, where I clicked on the install icon, and HH 
installed ok. A post install reboot brought me again to the start X stage, 
with the same load of garbage at the top of the screen, and the machine came 
to a dead stop again. Another hard reset, and appended the kernel line in 
Grub with acpi=off. Now it booted ok, I still got the garbage at the top of 
the screen when X started, but it then progressed to the KDM login screen, 
and all the garbage was gone.

I've had to do similar things with all the installs on this new machine, 
except Breezy with the 2.6.12 kernel. Upgrading Breezy to Dapper gave me a 
new kernel 2.6.15,  and booting with this brought back the old problem, with 
the machine locking up when X started. In this case I appended the kernel 
line in Grub with a 3, hoping to boot into runlevel 3, but instead of ending 
up in runlevel 3, the bootup progressed to the KDM login screen, and the 
problem was resolved. All a bit weird, but if it works use it.

So to conclude, you could try the following. None may work, but worth a try.
acpi=off
noapic
nolapic
noapic nolapic       (this one I need on the Fedora 8 install)

2¢ worth of perhaps useless info.

Hardware: Asus M2N-X Plus mobo, with AMD64 3800+ cpu, and Asus ati 1550 based 
graphics card (pci-express)

Nigel.