Ubuntu

ppc radeon 9200 no GUI ever (black screen) with no splash login or command series (running terminal "fixes" for weeks); 12.10 ubuntu

Asked by prairie zephyr

I have tried to be as resourceful as possible but I'm new to Ubuntu and linux. One frustration is that wikis have me trying things that worked for previous versions and over-populate the internet with out-of-date fixes > I'm at Ubuntu 12.10. The 13.04 Live DVD will not give me a GUI whatever I try. Downloading again from a mini-iso is not going to help I've learned. From the command line I've upgraded to 12.10 hoping some fix would appear in upgrading. A complication is that 1/6th of the terminal screen is offset so I can't read long outputted lines. If I try sudo X -configure I get "Fatal server error: Server is already active for display 0
                                                                                                                                                                  If this server is no longer running, remove /tmp/.X0-lo (end of what I can see on my 5/6 offset terminal window) and start again." http://askubuntu.com/questions/69896/cant-run-x-configure-server-is-already-active-error didn't work. I have spent a lot of time reinstalling (I started out with ubuntustudio mini iso but actually don't know what the latest sequence of install & upgrade was but ubuntu is healthy from the command line, upgraded today). I know somewhere someone knows a command sequence to get a desktop, I've installed unity & gnome hoping having multiple desktops might help (nope). I downloaded what I'm sure from the AMD site is the right driver (rage 128 Radeon 9200 on a 32 bit mac mini) to a new folder created from the root and tried to install it from there but that sort of blind surgery is a bit beyond my abilities. So can someone help me in the interest of 2nd lives for these otherwise perfectly capable ppc machines Apple has abandoned? I will do tests if I can help troubleshoot anything else in the ppc problem world. I have a pastebin output for a previous bug entry but it was 2010 since that one went dry and I don't know Ubuntu enough to learn anything from it. I edited the kernel to boot as video=aty128fb:1024x768@60D but that didn't work. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GraphicsTroubleshootingProcedure is impossible for me from the command line and no GUI. Thanks for any help you can point me to.

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

 try the boot option:

radeon.nomodeset=1

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prairie zephyr (prairie-zephyr) said : 		#2

No such luck. Thanks for the idea, one I haven't read anywhere. For the total newbie I was a few weeks ago who wants to try this on their system at boot prompt enter "Linux radeon.nomodeset=1" (I assume; at least that was a valid boot option) but totally a black screen terminals only environment. Actually there is a ghost image of the log in announcement once I logged in by command line and F7ed my way back to "desktop" i.e. ghost of tty1 terminal which can be erased by mouse movement as if it were a photoshop eraser. Also my monitor announces the resolution of every new signal: my black desktop is 640x480 although I had edited the yaboot to use 1024x768? It switches from 1280x768 straight to 640x480 during boot, something I don't understand... a little more googling , thought maybe I'd at lest get a full terminal window with a re-edit of yaboot.conf to append= "radeon.modeset=0 video=atyfb: 1280x768@60" but same right-shifted tty and same black screen desktop.
Also I googled to find other references of remove /tmp/.X0 and found a suggestion to "sudo rm /tmp/.X0-lock" after which I tried to "sudo X -configure" once more and still get Xserver terminal commands that I can't completely read since they're offset partly offscreen but still involve "Fatal server error: Server is already active for display 0". Anyone know how to at least get my full terminal to display? Maybe someone knows where one could find a list of all the current 12.10 graphics problem troubleshooting boot variables to try since any Ubuntu wiki on the subject (at least for radeon/ppc) I've come across is very outdated and will frustrate most Ubuntu conversions to fail long before they get this far whether this problem is ppc or radeon or something completely else.

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#3

If you want to use X -configure you will need to do it from the root recovery console so that the X server is not running.

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