video driver problems?

[buttonpusher69]

I have an PII 350 Mhz PC with an older PCI video card in it. I installed Ubuntu with no problems and all the text during the install displayed on the screen of my monitor, But when it completed the install and attempted to boot into the installed OS the monitor screen went blank and when it did display it was more like static on the screen with what I could make out displayed about 2-3 times.

I think it is a problem with the video card drivers (I hope), but as being new to linux I'm not sure on the steps to correct this. The video card that I have is a Cirrus Logic CLVGA54PCI and the monitor is a Smile Internaltional (KFC) CA1507.

If any one can tell me the steps needed to get this straightened out I would appreciate it as this is my linux learning PC and correcting this would help in my understanding of linux/Ubuntu.

Thanking all in advance

Buttonpusher69

[Parcival]

Well, I'm not familiar with Ubutnu, but this is what I would do:

(1) If Ubuntu provides a failsave mode for booting, I would boot this one. Alternatively, you may have to use a liveCD like Knoppix and then use the chroot command, which isn't very newbiefriendly, though.

(2) Once I got that far I would check what graphiccard driver is compiled into the kernel. To do so, type these commands into your console:

cd /usr/src/linux
make menuconfig

If you see your graphiccard enabled there, this should not count as the source of the error. If you see it's not enabled, you need to recompile your kernel. You can see how this needs to be done in the Justlinux Library (http://www.justlinux.com/nhf/Compiling_Kernels)

(3) If the kernel was not the source of your problems, the framebuffer setting may account for it. Check the documentation for the bootloader you use to find out how to disable the framebuffer.

[buttonpusher69]

Parcival

I don't see a failsafe mode in grub when it boots up, and the live CD that I have from Ubuntu has the video messed up too so it is very hard to do anything on this.

I may have to invest in a old PCI video card (better then the one I have) and try it again. But first will try what you said and see if I can get any results at all.

Thanks,

buttonpusher69

[buttonpusher69]

After much frustration and messing up my PC to the point I had to re-format my hd's. I got a slightly newer video card and re-tried my Ubuntu load and everything works just great now. It looks like the OS was not able to pick out the correct video driver or resolution to use. Now I have it up and running and I can start to apply the changes in my startup manual.

Thanks for the in put.

:D Buttonpusher69

Please consider this closed.