Ubuntu

Ubuntu 8.10 LiveCD Blank Screen

Asked by Newfy

I can’t seem to get Ubuntu 8.10 desktop “Live CD” to work. By “Live CD”, I mean I do a complete system boot, turning the computer off, then on, i.e. not booting the CD/DVD within Windows.

I’ve downloaded and burned Ubuntu 8.10 desktop to both a CD & DVD medium (a copy on each medium). I’ve set my Bios to boot from CD/DVD as first choice, hard drive 2nd choice. I put the Ubuntu 8.10 CD or DVD in the tray and reboot the computer, but both the CD and the DVD copies appear to hang each time at the same place.

When the CD or DVD boots, I choose “English”, then “Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer”. The Ubuntu logo comes up and the progress bar works, and I eventually hear the music, but get a blank screen. I’ve waited as long as 30 minutes, but nothing happens. I get the feeling that Ubuntu has loaded, but I just can’t see anything on the screen.

I burned all the ISO’s with Alcohol 120%, in Windows XP Pro. I’ve never had a problem before with any ISO I’ve burned with Alcohol (many CD’s/DVDs).

I also tried booting Ubuntu 8.10 from my USB flash drive. I followed the directions “How to Install, Boot, Run Ubuntu 8.10 from USB flash drive” but exactly the same thing happens as with the CD or DVD versions.

Additionally, I downloaded, burned, and booted both the Wolvix Cub 1.1.0 Final & Ubuntu 8.10 Alternate ISO’s. Both these seem to work just fine. All the functions in the “Wolvix Cub” appear to be working (I clicked on several, i.e. the web browser (Firefox), the network tools, word processor, etc. I didn’t really do anything with the “Alternate” DVD once I could see the main menu, since I only want to see the Ubuntu program without installing it, so there was nothing on that menu for me at this time.

I discovered that when I booted from either the USB flash drive or the DVD, that if I pressed Alt+Ctrl+F1, I could see the following lines on my screen:

Loading /casper/vmlinuz...
Loading /casper/initrd.gz…
Ready
Loading please wait
Linux Ubuntu 2.6.27-7-generic #1 SMP Fri Oct 24 o6:42:44 UTC 2008 i686

The programs included with the Ubuntu system… etc., etc.
Ubuntu com with ABSOLUTELY NO…. etc.

To access official Ubuntu documentation, …etc.
To run command as administrator… etc.

Ubuntu@Ubuntu:~$

[End of my screen]

I also discovered that I could type “Help” and get a list of commands and if I typed “ls” (I dimly remember this command from somewhere), I would get a blue line across the screen as follows:
Desktop Documents Music Pictures Public Template Videos

My system:
Motherboard: Asus P5K-E, with American Megatrends Bios, Intel P32/P35 Chipset.
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q660 @ 2400 MHz (not over clocked) with L1 & L2 Cache, temp 28 degrees C.
Memory: 4096 MB (4 x 1024 DDR2-SDRAM)
Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 3850 (with Open GL & GDI Plus).
Monitor: BenQ FP937s with driver installed and working (19 inches)
Six hard drives: all Western Digital -WDC’s, (four 500 GB and two 320 GB, plus two DVD Rom Drives (SATA).)
Two of these are IDE, the rest SATA drives, but none of these SATA drives are in a RAID (BIOS set to AHCI)
Also have a floppy disk drive.
OS: Win XP Pro 5.01.2600 SP3 booted from a 40 GB partition on one of the 500 GB IDE drives. Device Manager indicates all drivers installed and working.
DirectX: v 9.0c (July 2008) – not that this means anything to Ubuntu.
Logitech USB mouse (wireless), Standard PS/2 keyboard (Logitech) & one joystick.
Microsoft LifeCam,
Epson Perfection V500 scanner.
JMicron JMB36X Controller & SCSI/RAID Controller
Marvell Yukon 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Note that I’ve hardwired my router to my ethernet (no wireless connections).
All voltage, temps and fans working within specs.

BIOS Settings:
MAIN:
Sata Configuration: [AHCI] (Options are: IDE / RAID / AHCI)
AHCI CD/DVD Boot time out [15]
AHCI Ports 1-4 [Hard Disk], Ports 5 & 6 [ATAPI CD-ROM]

ADVANCED:
 J-Micron eSATA/PATA Controller [Enabled]
Controller Mode [IDE]
Marvel Gigabit LAN [Enabled]
LAN Boot ROM [Disabled]

Boot Device Priority:
1st Boot Device [CDROM: P4-HL-DT-ST]
2nd Boot Device [IDE: WDC WD5000AAK5]
3rd Boot Device [Disabled]

I’ve listed all this info, simply because I’m no “techie”, have never used Linux and don’t know what info you need to help. I’ve also spent a few hours searching and reading any related information I could find on this forum, but can’t seem to find anything that helps. Perhaps other people have never had this problem with Ubuntu’s “Live CD”.

Any help or suggestions will be most welcome as my son has been waxing poetic about Ubuntu and I intend to install a dual operating system (Win XP & Ubuntu 8.10 desktop), and perhaps eventually, hopefully, give up using Windows entirely as I am totally frustrated with the slow speed and constant maintenance required by Windows. I’ve spent many wasted hours fighting off Trojans, malware, etc. in spite of running the ZoneAlarm suite firewall and Eset’s Antivirus, plus three or four other cleaners and malware programs, plus registry cleaners. I find that I have to reinstall my OS about every couple of months or so just to get rid of all the junk that accumulates and progressively slows down the Windows OS. I guess this story is familiar to you? But first, I simply would like to see what Ubuntu looks like without installing anything.

So, what is the problem? Why won’t the “Live CD” / “Try Ubuntu without any change…” work for me?
Is it possible that my monitor doesn’t support the graphic mode that Ubuntu is using? If so, is there a way to change the mode used by Ubuntu 8.10 LiveCD? ? Or is it something else entirely?

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Grnthumbd
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Revision history for this message
Simone Cianfriglia (crimer) said : 		#1

Compliments, a very great pc :)

Talking about your issue, have you tried booting from the cd/dvd-burner? I had a lot of problems when I tried to install ubuntu from the cd/dv-reader, it hangs at some point during the setup.

Another thing you can try (but I think it will not change anything) is restart xorg by typing "ctrl+alt+backspace" in 7th console (ctrt+alt+f7). If it hangs another time, try by copying the messages you see when you enter the 8th console.

Revision history for this message
Newfy (wtaylor) said : 		#2

Thank you for your very prompt reply, I was pleasantly surprised  And thank you for the kind compliment, I simply wanted a fast machine because I find Windows so slow… lol

Actually, both my CDROMS are cd/dvd burners. They are identical; I bought them both at the same time, since I needed SATA burners for this MB. I suppose I could try changing the SATA connections so the other one is the “boot” CDROM if you think that would make any difference, although they are identical, unless one is malfunctioning somehow.

So, in reference to your instructions, here’s what happened:

1. Booted Ubuntu DVD same as before, saw LOGO, “Try without any changes…” highlighted, pressed [Enter], saw Logo & progress bar (as before), then hear the music & the screen goes blank.

2. Pressed Ctrl+Alt+ F7, still have blank screen.

3. Pressed Ctrl+Alt+Backspace, The “No Signal Detected” message appeared on my monitor, then disappeared, then heard music again.

4. Pressed Ctrl+Alt+F8 and got the following text:
         a. *Starting deferred execution scheduler atd [OK]
         b. *Starting periodic command scheduler crond [OK]
         c. *Enabling additional executable binary formats binfmt-support [OK]
         d. *Checking battery state… [OK]

5. Then I pressed Ctrl+Alt+F7 again (just to see what would happen) got “no signal detected” message, then a blank screen.

6. Pressed Ctrl+Alt+Backspace, and heard the music again.

After that, everything seemed to lock up, so I pressed Ctrl+Alt+Del (from habit I guess) and got to the “Exit” screen with the Ubuntu logo and a message to take out the DVD and press Enter to continue (from what I remember)

So the program seems to be running, I just can’t seem to see any graphics other than the main screen.

Any more suggestions?

Revision history for this message
Best Grnthumbd (spikexz33) said : 		#3

I had the same problem you are having but only when I was trying to install the OS with a westinghouse 18.5. So I connected my plasma as a monitor for the installation and it worked! My guess would be the monitor try the tv if you can

Revision history for this message
Alex Rybicki (alex-rybicki) said : 		#4

assuming nothing above has helped you, try burning the cd at a lower speed. ive had many errors by burning at a fast speed on bootable cds. even the latest cd burners seem to have problems burning bootable cds at high speeds. try burning at x16 or x10.

i hope that helps.

Revision history for this message
Newfy (wtaylor) said : 		#5

Thanks to you both for your replies,
First I'll try burning at 4X slow speed, then if that fails, I'll try to find my old monitor and hook that up. Will let you know if anything works

Revision history for this message
Newfy (wtaylor) said : 		#6

Sadly the mystery remains.

First I burned another copy of Ubuntu 8.10 at 6.1X, the slowest speed that Alcohol would allow; booted up the DVD, but with the same previous result.

I wondered about this one, because the Ubuntu USB boot flash drive I had made also gives me the same results, and, of course, there’s no burning involved there, but I’m willing to try any possible suggestion at this stage, i.e. the USB boot drive might have been faulty.

Another point, when I downloaded & ran the “Ubuntu810.bat” file (to create the bootable USB) it downloaded a fresh copy of 8.10 onto the flash drive, so it’s unlikely that both iso’s I’ve downloaded are faulty.

Then I got out my old Dell tube monitor & hooked it up, but yet again with the same result, a blank screen… *sigh. I could even hear the old monitor clicking off and on as I switched from graphics mode (F7) to Text mode (F1). The monitor actually shut itself down in graphics mode, and had to warm up again in text mode.

So, for some reason, no graphics / screen is being sent to the monitor, even though the main “splash” screen shows up just fine, but the Wolvix Cub iso works like a charm!

Thanks again for everyone’s suggestions, even though my problem persists.

Revision history for this message
Grnthumbd (spikexz33) said : 		#7

Try pressing F4 (Mode) on the screen where you can choose to "Try Ubuntu without any change, install ubuntu, " etc. It should pop up a menu with the normal highlight or checked i can't remember which. Select the one that says low graphics or assisted graphics, should be the second option. Hope that works for you.

Revision history for this message
Newfy (wtaylor) said : 		#8

SUCCESS!
By simply pressing F4 (Modes) I was able to boot the Ubuntu CD and start exploring.

So, for anyone else, the procedure is:
1. Set your BIOS Boot Device Priority to 1st Boot Device = CDROM
2. Place the burned Ubuntu 8.10 CD/DVD in your CDROM & Boot computer
3. At the main Ubuntu screen press [F4 (Modes)]
4. Select “Safe Graphics Mode” [Enter]
5. With “Try Ubuntu without any changes…” highlighted press [Enter] again.

As they say around here, I feel pretty “stunned”. The solution was staring me in the face all this time; I just didn’t look carefully enough at the menu to try out the other options.

Note that the Ubuntu 8.10 USB boot flash drive I had made doesn’t give you the “F4 (Modes)” option, this is only on the CD/DVD menu.

As a side note, my first impression of Ubuntu OS is that it’s clean, fast, and comes with all the basic programs and tools required by an average user, not to mention that it’s FREE!

I would also like to commend the friendly and helpful volunteers for their speedy help. Having a support forum like this at your fingertips is an enormous advantage. Thanks to everyone (and especially Grnthumbd) for their helpful suggestions, I think that the solution was so obvious, that one couldn’t help but assume that I had already tried that option….I can’t help but feel a little embarrassed that I hadn’t.

After a little more exploration, I’m looking forward to installing Ubuntu and finally having a reliable and fast OS. Thanks again everyone.

Revision history for this message
Newfy (wtaylor) said : 		#9

Thanks Grnthumbd, that solved my question.