Dual boot system - XP Pro always boots : Jaunty frequently fails to boot

I suggest you reinstall grub from live cd. I also suggest you umount all partitions and fsck them as well as run the memory tester that is part of grub

Hmm, this is curious. When you are booting up do you get just one option for booting into Ubuntu or do you get a few? If you have just one then it's because you have installed Ubuntu inside Windows so i would recommend part 8 of section 8 in this guide
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WubiGuide

If you have lots of options is it something to do with having installed Ubuntu on a second hard-drive and perhaps the data cable to that drive being loose? I doubt it is this but then i've never seen that error message before so i'm just curious really

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Tom:

I've got a single 500Gb Hitachi disk partitioned so that XP and Ubuntu have roughly half each. Grub menu shows 4 Ubuntu options and one for XP.

actionparsnip:

Reinstalled grub. Ran memtest - no errors. Ran fsck - no errors. Managed to do several successful boots, then eventually I got the message

Ubuntu is running in low-graphics mode.

The following error was encountered. You may need to update your configuration to solve this.

(EE) intel(0) No valid modes
(EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.

From here, dropped into the command prompt, did a "sudo su" followed by "reboot", and the system started correctly. I think it's the logic and/or timing of the monitor setup which is incorrect in Ubuntu. It's sometimes not seeing the monitor correctly, as the above message proves. The monitor is a tft with 1440*900 resolution connected by a vga cable (it doesn't have DV). Is there anything I can do about this?

what graphics card?

lspci | grep -i vga

will tell you what you have. Sounds like you need to reconfigure video drivers.

I'm using the motherboard integrated graphics. The above command reports this:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82G33/G31 Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 10)

Looks like there is problem with graphic configuration-xconfig--reboot in safe mode and select the graphic option to create a new xconfig and see if that helps.

Have you tried hardware option from the system menu, to see if there are better driver available for your graphic card.

Good Luck

System>Administration>Hardware Drivers lists no drivers.

I'd be glad to install any necessary video drivers if I could find one to solve the problem. I've had a look on Intel's site, but can't find one that would clearly work. My motherboard chipset is G31/946GZ + ICH7

Correction: xconfig is called xorg.conf in Ubuntu and you can find it in /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Ahah. Onar we have another option in Ubuntu :)

Steve, thanks for the info earlier. I'm sorry to say that you have installed it perfectly, so we can't do that kind of 'simple' fix.

In the boot menu choose the option for Ubuntu that has "recovery mode" at the end of it's line. This should get you to a disturbingly blue screen which has a menu for many routine maintenance, i usually run through most of these about once a month. The option "fix x-server" might help fix your graphics issue ;) and then the top menu item is "resume normal boot". If you've tried "Drop to root shell" then typing "reboot" should just reboot the machine as normal.

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

None of the above have helped, sadly.

I suspect what I need is a proprietary driver, or a fix to Ubuntu's generic VGA driver.

Oh, that's disappointing. I think you are right about needing to find a graphics driver but i've no idea how to go about that. I assume you have tried going up to the top taskbar and click on

System - Administration - Hardware Drivers

and also tried the Hardware testing in that sub-menu too?

This is very frustrating, as I've tried everything to fix this, but nothing seems to work.

Annoyingly, as I said, Windows XP always works, switching my monitor perfectly into 1440*900 high res mode without glitching. There's nothing to unusual about this, and so Ubuntu should be able to do it too.

When I query Windows about my monitor, here's what the driver reports:

 Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator Driver Report

Report Date: 07/25/2009
Report Time[hr:mm:ss]: 11:23:49
Driver Version: 6.14.10.4885
Operating System: Windows XP* Professional, Service Pack 2 (5.1.2600)
Default Language: English
DirectX* Version: 9.0
Physical Memory: 3317 MB
Minimum Graphics Memory: 8 MB
Maximum Graphics Memory: 128 MB
Graphics Memory in Use: 11 MB
Processor: x86 family 6 Model 23 Stepping 10
Processor Speed: 2829 MHZ
Vendor ID: 8086
Device ID: 29C2
Device Revision: 10

* Accelerator Information *

Accelerator in Use: Intel(R) G33/G31 Express Chipset Family
Video BIOS: 1471.0
Current Graphics Mode: 1440 by 900 True Color (60 Hz)

* Devices Connected to the Graphics Accelerator *

Active Monitors: 1

* Monitor *

Monitor Name: Plug and Play Monitor
Display Type: Analog
Gamma Value: 2.20
DDC2 Protocol: Supported
Maximum Image Size: Horizontal: 16.0 inches
   Vertical: 10.0 inches
Monitor Supported Modes:
640 by 480 (60 Hz)
640 by 480 (75 Hz)
720 by 400 (70 Hz)
800 by 600 (60 Hz)
800 by 600 (75 Hz)
1024 by 768 (60 Hz)
1024 by 768 (75 Hz)
1280 by 1024 (60 Hz)
1280 by 1024 (75 Hz)
1440 by 900 (60 Hz)
1440 by 1440 (60 Hz)
Display Power Management Support:
 Standby Mode: Not Supported
 Suspend Mode: Not Supported
 Active Off Mode: Supported

Steve, Yes Linux should but in some case the 2 levels of functionality differe in wild ways

For example, some wifi chips using ndiswrapper cannot perform WPA encryption, windows will

Windows is a big private company with billions of dollar/euros/rupees/coins/whatever poured into it by their user base, in turn this allows them to hire guys and pay them a wage.
Open source has some cash but is no where near what Microsoft gets. They are usually just a bunch of guys who wrote some code and it helps other guys do stuff in their projects, hence community. Not only is their this hurdle but as the vast majority of users are windows users, companys get significantly more cash supporting windows and very little supporting Linux etc. So will plow nearly 100% resources into supporting Windows to get maximum return. Sadly if you do not use WIndows and the company has turned its back on anything else (ATi is a classic example of this) then support for cards would come only from the community on a best attempt basis. ATi have since took their heads out of their asses and their support is getting a lot better.

So in short, Yes it "should" work, but unfortunately due to greedy companies, a lot of stuff simply doesn't work and some stuff will kinda work. Other stuff will work. In Windows a lot of stuff will work due to years of support but they are now looking at linux due to the craze that Ubuntu has caused (Despite what is at its core has been the same for years)

If you want 1440x900 resolution, you can add it to /etc/X11/xorg.conf

here is mine for reference. I use 1024x768:

# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings
# nvidia-settings: version 1.0 (buildd@crested) Sun Feb 1 20:25:37 UTC 2009

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier "Layout0"
    Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load "dbe"
    Load "extmod"
    Load "type1"
    Load "freetype"
    Load "glx"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
    Option "Xinerama" "0"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier "Mouse0"
    Driver "mouse"
    Option "Protocol" "auto"
    Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier "Keyboard0"
    Driver "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    # HorizSync source: xconfig, VertRefresh source: xconfig
    Identifier "Monitor0"
    VendorName "Unknown"
    ModelName "CRT-0"
    HorizSync 30.0 - 110.0
    VertRefresh 50.0 - 150.0
    Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier "Device0"
    Driver "nvidia"
    VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName "GeForce 6150"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Screen0"
    Device "Device0"
    Monitor "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth 24
    Option "TwinView" "0"
    Option "metamodes" "1024x768_85 +0+0; nvidia-auto-select +0+0; 1024x768 +0+0"
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth 24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Sorry actionparsnip - I wasn't trying to rattle anybody here. I've been in the industry for thirty years myself, and my career completely spans both Windows and Linux, so I know how it goes.

My system *does* work very well indeed when I can get it past this boot glitch. The monitor (and the driver behind it) *does* work properly if the boot sequence doesn't crap out. I'm *so* near to having a fabulous system, if I could just nail down this one thing somehow.

From reading the logs, it looks to me as if intel.ids, which appears to be the generic vga driver for the intel integrated chipsets, has some logic depending upon gettting a mode list returned from the monitor. It sometimes gets it right, and it sometimes doesn't. Which means that it has to be a timing issue, a fuzzy logic problem, or an initial conditions problem. The fact that Windows always gets the mode list right (as confirmed by my driver report above) suggests that the monitor is ok. Whatever it is, it's a really little thing.

I'll try dabbling with some parameters in the xorg.conf, but it looks to me as if the mode list issue preempts that anyway: i.e. the logic craps out before it gets around to considering any explicitly declared settings.

If I can't get that to work, I'll consider getting a cheapo graphics card to circumvent the problem.

You could try the old intel driver compiled for Jaunty. Its hit an miss but is able to be rolled back:
http://webupd8.blogspot.com/2009/05/reverting-xorg-video-intel-driver-of.html

I've helped a few n here with this. Se how you go.

Personally I always buy nvidia due to fantastic support :D

Hi Steve :)

I just stopped trying to answer this when i realised the answer was way beyond what i know so i didn't want people to see your question as "Answered". AP and others are better at dealing with linux under the bonnet :)

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

I absolutely could not find a solution to this - nothing worked - not even reverting to the previous intel driver.

Finally admitted defeat, reformatted my Linux partition and installed Ubuntu 8.04.3.

Boots up perfectly every time, with the monitor set to 1440*900 as it should be.

Grrr, how annoying! Really good news tho - i'm glad it's all working now :)))
Congrats and regards from
Tom :)

Hi :)

Have you been able to try the new Ubuntu 10.04 before it gets officially released?
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/testing/lucid/beta2
Trying it as a LiveCd or as an extra dual/multi-boot would be ideal. Developers and everyone are keen to try to iron out any problems before 10.04 gets officially released so you might find faster & more effective answers to your bug reports which would make 10.04 work better on your system for you

Thanks and regards from
Tom :)