After LOGIN, black screen with random letters and numbers, all different colors

[wastedfluid]

Hello all,

Was running Kubuntu 8.04 KDE4 remix. Decided to upgrade to 8.10.

After a re-boot into a newer kernel, and having a blank screen - rebooted into recovery, and installed restricted and headers for the newer kernel(not sure why this was not done.)

Finally, it rebooted. Saw a KDE login screen. Typed in my user and pass, saw a blank screen.. monitor showed an attempt to go to 1440x900. Then, I get a rather interesting screen.

It's full of letters, colors, ascii characters, all different colors. Blue, red, green, black, white, the whole nine yards.

This is pulled from syslog.

kdm_greet cannot open default user face
acpid | client connected from 5607
kdm x server for display :0 terminated unexpected
kdm: unable to fire up local display
sysrq: emergency sync
emergency sync omplete

So, thinking it was the upgrade, I downloaded a fresh copy, did a fresh install, and got the very same result.

I am running an Nvidia 8500GT if it makes a difference. The driver is the open source, as I didn't have a chance to use the actual nvidia driver.

Please help.

Thanks a lot :-)

[wastedfluid]

Re: After LOGIN, black screen with random letters and numbers, all different colors

Let's try to make your day more interesting.

[img width=400 height=300]http://i34.tinypic.com/2us7kt1.jpg[/img]

Thanks for any help.

8)

[lmilano]

Re: After LOGIN, black screen with random letters and numbers, all different colors

Hi

I have a similar issue, also upgrading from 8.04 with KDE4. In my case I have an NVIDIA card and got downgraded to the nv driver. Since I also keep 8.04, I reverted for now (though it's nmot trivial, because .kde gets ported to KDE4). Other people had similar issues. For some, it has to do with Compiz enabled:

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3098276.0

Would that help you (try to disable Compiz)? In my case, I haven't tried that. But I noticed a weird things: different KDE users in my machine, some would get the black screen and some not. Also, if a user sees the black screen in a KDE login, they don't see it as when loging into ice. So, it must be some configuration filke screwing the login.

The other thing to try is to boot in recovery mode and run the "fix X server" step, see if ti helps.

Good luck, and keep us posted :-)

[wastedfluid]

Re: After LOGIN, black screen with random letters and numbers, all different colors

Thanks for the reply.

I tried the "fix x server", but no success.

I did also remove compiz, and all of its packages.

I guess it's time to go back to ol' 8.04.

[lmilano]

Re: After LOGIN, black screen with random letters and numbers, all different colors

Ok, thanks for the update. I'll let you know if I make any progress.

In the meantime I am running 8.04. I use two partitions for / in my computer, one in "current" use, and one where I try to upgrade to the next Kubuntu, and I iron things out until its all smooth and I make the switch. I am guessing this time it'll take a month or so (new NVIDIA binary drivers would be welcome).

The main difference I noticed in Intrepid is much faster boot up, otherwise, it's mostly the same as 8.04 plus latest KDE4 from the Kubuntu repos (slightly more polished)

Cheers!

[toad]

Re: After LOGIN, black screen with random letters and numbers, all different colors

Have you tried dibl's instructions here: http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...2816#msg152816

[lmilano]

Re: After LOGIN, black screen with random letters and numbers, all different colors

Thanks Toad! I'll probably try that some time. There are definitely big issues with the "nv" driver in my machine. I noticed the xorg.conf file is just a few lines in intrepid, really weird. But it's still working for certain users in kde4 and not for others. Go figure!

Today I spent a few frustrating hours, and I couldn't fix a thing. This is very tricky because intrepid ports your .kde into a kde4 config, so you need to back up you .kde before testing in intrepid if you want to be able to go back to 8.04 (that's if you share the same /home, which is the only way you can carry along your emails and kontact info).

All in all, this has been my worst Linux experience in years. If I didn't have a lot of Linux experience I would be stuck with something that just doesn't give you anything more than a black screen after login, and no way to go back. Well, I guess you could try a failsafe X session and then apt-get to (gnome) ubuntu if yuou were a newbie and someone guided you, and then you'd have to move all your emails to evolution, assuming that;s possible.

Maybe intrepid is a bit too, well, intrepid to be a Golden release :-(

Cheers!

[toad]

Re: After LOGIN, black screen with random letters and numbers, all different colors

What NVIDIA card do you have? Perhaps this will help http://techbase.kde.org/User:Lemma/KDE4-NVIDIA

[lmilano]

Re: After LOGIN, black screen with random letters and numbers, all different colors

What NVIDIA card do you have? Perhaps this will help http://techbase.kde.org/User:Lemma/KDE4-NVIDIA

Thanks for the link (and your time, really appreciated, gotta love the community)!

I have a GeForce2 MX100/200 as reported by the nvidia config. I am using in 8.04 the 96.43.05 driver. I tried yesterday in 8.10 using envyng. It suggested the same driver as I am using here, but the dkms build failed.

There is more info on the beta driver mentioned in the link you provided here:
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=115916

Maybe that's the way to go. But since I have other issues, I'll wait a little more to switch, hopefully some of these will be ironed out in future updates for intrepid:

* No dhcp connection at bootup, and I could only so far do it a single user: each user would have to connect to the internet after login, ridiculous.

* No way to edit the init1, int2, etc services from a GUI

* Even with the "nv" driver, some 2D games won't play in fullscreen. And that's in the only user that doesn't get a black screen in KDE4 in the machine.

* Once you try 8.10 and failed (assuming you have the same home directory as in 8.04) there is no easy way back (unless you backed up the ~/.kde directory before, then used a differen DE to login and restore the original KDE before starting 8.04

All in all, this release really feels like beta software, at least in my machine ... hopefully in a month it will become more polished!

Cheers!

[dibl]

Re: After LOGIN, black screen with random letters and numbers, all different colors

The 8.10 release notes contain explain that the legacy drivers are not supported by the new X.org version in 8.10, and users with GeForce2 cards (among others) will be transitioned to the "nv" driver (meaning no 3D):

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/810

[lmilano]

Re: After LOGIN, black screen with random letters and numbers, all different colors

Fair enough, and I decided to live in 2D for a while, but I can't even get a KDE session, that's the big issue. Or look at the original post in this thread.

On the bright side, the upgrade was the best I've ever had, a little slow because we were all hitting the canonical servers, but it was flawless (except for my graphic card issues)

Cheers!

[toad]

Re: After LOGIN, black screen with random letters and numbers, all different colors

So I take it you have tried going back to basics with:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

And you are still getting these problems?

[lmilano]

Re: After LOGIN, black screen with random letters and numbers, all different colors

I did the dpkg-reconfigure from the command line (withouth the -phigh switch) and from the "repair xserver" option in the "recovery mode" boot option in grub. I'll try next time to use the phigh switch and see if it helps. Thanks a lot! :-)