Trouble with Ubuntu

zeldagamer

Alright, so my monitor shuts off any time I try loading ubuntu from the Live CD. I am just trying it so I really dont want to do a clean install.....yet and wipe my Windows 7. It gets to the screen that says boot ubuntu from CD and I hit enter and my monitor shuts off like it is asleep, but wont come back on until I do a hard restart.

I have a NVIDIA Geforce 6150 LE video card and it is on-board

I vagely remember something about nvidia cards not working with newer ubuntu with out having to do something to it.....

Also not only explain how to fix it , but if possible, tell me why it is that way....I like to learn about computers

:unsure: :unsure: :unsure: :unsure:

mfillpot

Have you tried to boot to any other Linux based live CDs to see if the problem is limited to ubuntu?

zeldagamer

No, I have not. I don't have the means at the moment to download another. Is it possible it has something to do with my graphics card.....

MikeEnIke

Generally Nvidia cards have great support in Ubuntu. I have a mobile card that works just fine and is newer than that. It would especially run in the basic Live CD mode. I would try re-burning the Ubuntu CD. Could just be a bad one.

odlevakp

I haven’t encountered such problems before, but here are some tips that might help:

When booting from the Ubuntu CD you won't see the boot menu by default, iirc only an icon of "a keyboard and a guy" in the bottom of your screen... that's the time when you have to press any key to get to the boot CD menu (if you don't, it will start booting the live CD after a while).

Next to eliminate the possibility of bad burned/corrupted CD there is an option called "Check disc for defects". After the check the computer will be rebooted, so you have to get to the menu again.

Then press "F6 Other Options" and try the "acpi=off", "noapic" or "Free software only" options.
Details here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootOptions


Also please take a look at Ubuntu wubi
http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/windows-installer

zeldagamer

Alright. Checking the disk for defects also makes the monitor shut off. However, the only F6 option that makes anything work is nomodeset. Yesterday, it made the live CD work, but today it says:

"No init found. Try passing init= bootarg"

Then below, it says
"(initramfs)" and allows me to type a command


Nothing is wrong with the disk,because yesterday I also checked the disk for defects and it had none.
Also I have already tried wubi and it does the same thing....shuts off the monitor.

zeldagamer

Is it possible it is my drivers....just a thought...I know NOTHING about linux or how things work

mfillpot

zeldagamer wrote:

Is it possible it is my drivers....just a thought...I know NOTHING about linux or how things work

Because you are able to get into an interactive prompt and have checked the disk for defects that tells us that it is not a kernel panic from corrupt data. It does in fact appear to be a case where their video driver auto-configuration is either choosing the wrong driver or mis-configuring the video output.

Because it is a live CD with limited functionality which does not save any information I do not know of any steps that can be taken to resolve the issue in it's current state. But if you do want to install ubuntu you can do it from the alternate installer disk which does not use gui mode, generally upon installing it chooses different options or you can boot into recovery mode to correct the configuration yourself.

zeldagamer

So the alternate installer somewhat worked. It actually allowed me to install. However, it gets to the base system install part, it gets to like...6% and says something about a debootstrap warning and that 1ubuntu4_i38.deb was corrupt. I have checked the disk for defects multiple times and each time it came out negative..no defects. Should I still try to re-download the disk again? I was hopeful all my problems were over....:( If I need to can I order an alternate installer, like I can the normal one??If so, does it cost??
When I was installing (trying):( my wqindows system was deleted. so now I will do anything I can to make Ubuntu work.:)

mfillpot

Can you please tell my what software you used to confirm the integrity of the installation disk?

zeldagamer

Well, my burning software (I think it is called imgburn) said the .iso and my disk were the same. And I used the checker on the Ubuntu alternate installer disk to make sure the .iso was not messed up. why? Did I do something wrong?

mfillpot

I have seen some windows based burning software return success messages when they failed. But since you ran the checker on the disk it should be good. With that being the case the only reason that I can see if left for corrupt files on your disk after installation is if the files were written to bad sections of the hard drive. Can you check your hard drive for corruptions?

As for your issue with wiping windows off of the system, do you have the installation/recovery disks? If you plan to dual boot windows and Linux on your machine you will need to install windows first to avoid potential errors.

zeldagamer

Yes I could re install windows, but I will probably just stick with Ubuntu. And how do you check a hard drive for errors???:huh: :huh:

mfillpot

zeldagamer wrote:

Yes I could re install windows, but I will probably just stick with Ubuntu. And how do you check a hard drive for errors???:huh: :huh:

You can use the ultimate boot CD (http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/) to run the disk checking software from various hard drive manufacturers or use the manufacturer's installation CDs.

zeldagamer

Alright so about Linux... would it be possible for me to get the drivers I need if I reinstalled Windows 7.???:unsure:



Another thing that made me hopeful. I forgot that when I downloaded my Ubuntu CD, I also (for a reason I am not sure of) downloaded the Kubuntu CD. It is x64 and I put it in my drive and used the F6 option nomodeset and it installed!!!! but when it restarted......the monitor shut off.......and If I had an AMD graphics card I would but sadly I do not..

LinuxSquirrel

The linux drivers for NVIDIA's integrated graphics tends to lag, even for the proprietary drivers (that do not come with the bootable CD). Sometimes, its just the combination with the monitor, so try swapping in another monitor. The easiest solution is to just stick any old ATI graphic card in the machine (presuming its not a laptop).

saqman2060

I have similar problem running ubuntu 10.10 on my computer that uses an ATI Radeon Video card. I am able to boo the liveCD, but I install it, my monitor says "no input signal". This was after I install the opensource driver for my video card. When decided not to install the driver, my video worked fine.

It could be a case your video card not properly supported. I have noticed that when the kernel developers write drivers, they write drivers generically that are supposed to work on all types of hardware. If you don't use the generic driver written for your hardware device, then you will be using the default driver accompanying your distro. In your case, your video controller can't use neither. You are able to use the vga driver that allows you to boot to a command prompt.

Try using a distro that used an earlier kernel. You can use ubuntu 9.10 or fedora 9. Check these out and tell use whar happens.

zeldagamer

I am so happy! After I installed Kubuntu 10.10 and it still shut off, I looked on another site and saw a place where they told me to hold shift as Linux starts, hit the e key to edit the grub, take some phrase out and put nomodeset and it let me on and my drivers got installed!!!