I'm trying to reinstall an old server with Ubuntu 12.10 (it was previously on 12.04 I think, but had accumulated a lot of rubbish and a fresh install was the way to go).
When I boot the LiveCD, at the point that (I believe) lightdm starts, I get "Signal out of range" on my monitor and can't get any further.
I have tried various boot options (nomodeset, fb=false) without luck. I've also tried creating an xorg.conf file manually from the terminal and restarting lightdm - that has got me closer but I don't know my way around xorg.conf well enough to get this to work. (I copied xorg.conf.fallback to xorg.conf and added VertRefresh and HorizSync parameters, which got me a low resolution (800x600?) display but the mouse was all over the place and I managed to break it in the end so had to (hard) reset, losing my changes).
What is the "correct" way to fix this? Is there a way to tell Xorg to dump its current settings to an xorg.conf file so that I can tweak it? What's a good "default" xorg.conf file that should work? Or a minimal one that might get me 1280x1024@75Hz (fglrx as the driver from memory).
On Mon, 26 Nov 2012 14:03:06 +0000, mark@quarella.co.uk said:
What is the "correct" way to fix this?
"Correct" is an interesting adjective. You could try a text mode install from the alternate [sic] CD (https://help.ubuntu.com/12.10/installation-guide/)
On 26/11/12 22:19, Keith Edmunds wrote:
"Correct" is an interesting adjective. You could try a text mode install from the alternate [sic] CD (https://help.ubuntu.com/12.10/installation-guide/)
Unfortunately the alternate CD was discontinued with 12.10 (at least as far as I can tell it was).
However I have now managed to get 12.10 to install - a combination of changing to a different monitor and playing with xorg.conf (playing with different HorizSync values until I found one the monitor liked) meant I managed to get a workable 800x600 desktop from which to run the install.
Now all I have to do is make the installed system work....
When trying to install, the graphics was fine through the boot process (I saw the "Ubuntu" text with the four dots underneath it as it booted), but failed when lightdm started (login / desktop). Now it's the opposite: I get "signal out of range" all the way through the boot process but it works (for some value of "works") from the login prompt onwards. However, I can't get better that 800x600, and I get graphics artefacts when I try to do anything with it. I can also no longer switch to a terminal (Alt-Shift-F[1-6]) because they now give me the signal out of range error. I have at least managed to give myself SSH access so I can try things that way instead.
The graphics hardware is ATI RAGE XL (on the motherboard), which ATI no longer support but should be supported by the mach64 driver if only I can work out the right xorg.conf for my hardware. I have to say though that at this point I'm thinking that rolling back to 12.04 (or back even further) is seeming like a better idea. If anyone has any suggestions before I give up on it I'll certainly try them though.
Mark
On 27/11/12 09:05, Mark Rogers wrote:
On 26/11/12 22:19, Keith Edmunds wrote:
"Correct" is an interesting adjective. You could try a text mode install from the alternate [sic] CD (https://help.ubuntu.com/12.10/installation-guide/)
Unfortunately the alternate CD was discontinued with 12.10 (at least as far as I can tell it was).
However I have now managed to get 12.10 to install - a combination of changing to a different monitor and playing with xorg.conf (playing with different HorizSync values until I found one the monitor liked) meant I managed to get a workable 800x600 desktop from which to run the install.
[snip]
The graphics hardware is ATI RAGE XL (on the motherboard), which ATI no longer support but should be supported by the mach64 driver if only I can work out the right xorg.conf for my hardware. I have to say though that at this point I'm thinking that rolling back to 12.04 (or back even further) is seeming like a better idea. If anyone has any suggestions before I give up on it I'll certainly try them though.
I had similar problems when trying to install Mandriva on my i7 machine which has an ATI graphics card.
I have to add the following to the boot command when installing :- nomodeset ati.modeset=0 radeon.modeset=0 and then I can get to the desktop with a complete install. Once there, I then have to install a proprietary driver.
HTH.
On 27/11/12 11:22, Chris Walker wrote:
I have to add the following to the boot command when installing :- nomodeset ati.modeset=0 radeon.modeset=0 and then I can get to the desktop with a complete install. Once there, I then have to install a proprietary driver.
Thanks for that, I'll make a note for future reference. However, from the research I've done ATI's current proprietary driver releases do not support my (apparently ancient) card, so I've rolled back to 12.04 which is working fine except for giving me the "signal out of range" error during boot. I can live with that, at least for now.
Sometimes it turns out that installing Linux can be as hard work as installing Windows!
(And... why is there no VESA standard above 800x600? Minimal 1024x768 and 1280x1024 VESA compatibility across all graphics cards would go a long way to making this problem go away!)
Mark
There are VESA standard timings for those modes. Specifically 1024x768 at 60, 70, 75 and 86Hz, and 1280x1024 at 75Hz. There are also standard timings for 1280x1024 at 60 and 85Hz. Is your monitor a CRT or TFT? Can you extract the EDID from it?
Tim.
On 27 November 2012 12:49, Mark Rogers mark@quarella.co.uk wrote:
On 27/11/12 11:22, Chris Walker wrote:
I have to add the following to the boot command when installing :- nomodeset ati.modeset=0 radeon.modeset=0 and then I can get to the desktop with a complete install. Once there, I then have to install a proprietary driver.
Thanks for that, I'll make a note for future reference. However, from the research I've done ATI's current proprietary driver releases do not support my (apparently ancient) card, so I've rolled back to 12.04 which is working fine except for giving me the "signal out of range" error during boot. I can live with that, at least for now.
Sometimes it turns out that installing Linux can be as hard work as installing Windows!
(And... why is there no VESA standard above 800x600? Minimal 1024x768 and 1280x1024 VESA compatibility across all graphics cards would go a long way to making this problem go away!)
Mark
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On 27/11/12 12:49, Mark Rogers wrote:
On 27/11/12 11:22, Chris Walker wrote:
I have to add the following to the boot command when installing :- nomodeset ati.modeset=0 radeon.modeset=0 and then I can get to the desktop with a complete install. Once there, I then have to install a proprietary driver.
Thanks for that, I'll make a note for future reference. However, from the research I've done ATI's current proprietary driver releases do not support my (apparently ancient) card, so I've rolled back to 12.04 which is working fine except for giving me the "signal out of range" error during boot. I can live with that, at least for now.
Sometimes it turns out that installing Linux can be as hard work as installing Windows!
(And... why is there no VESA standard above 800x600? Minimal 1024x768 and 1280x1024 VESA compatibility across all graphics cards would go a long way to making this problem go away!)
Mark
When I had some boot issues, I was pointed at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootOptions
There is a boot option vga=xxx
I then followed the link about vesa modes to the standards you want :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VESA_BIOS_Extensions#Linux_video_mode_numbers
I then followed the advice there, and did
sudo hwinfo --framebuffer
I then picked the resolution listed there, and used it in the boot option
e.g. vga=0x0318 for 1024x768 24 bits.
That may help. If not, ISTR there's an XORG utility that will detect your preferred screen resolution and write it to your xorg.conf file - this may or may not help with the signal out of range option when booting.
There's also a program called XRandR (or perhaps just RandR) which helps set the screen resolution once booted, though I don't know if it'll have any effect during boot.
Good luck!
Steve
A quick google finds what I couldn't remember earlier
sudo Xorg -configure
will detect your hardware and write an initial xorg.conf file for you, which you can then tweak. Dunno if this will help for your situation though.
A bit of googling found this link for FreeBSD, which I know is not what you're running, but explains what to do altering the xorg.conf file.
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x-config.html
A bit more googling might find a more ubuntu-relevant equivalent. Perhaps turning off the auto-detect behaviour might help?
Steve
On Tue, 27 Nov 2012 09:05:41 +0000 Mark Rogers mark@quarella.co.uk allegedly wrote:
The graphics hardware is ATI RAGE XL (on the motherboard), which ATI no longer support but should be supported by the mach64 driver if only I can work out the right xorg.conf for my hardware. I have to say though that at this point I'm thinking that rolling back to 12.04 (or back even further) is seeming like a better idea. If anyone has any suggestions before I give up on it I'll certainly try them though.
I can't help thinking that a better approach might be to buy a newer graphics card and disable the on-board graphics. Rolling back to an older (potentially unsupported depending upon actual age) OS version is not ideal.
Mick
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On 27/11/12 14:26, mick wrote:
I can't help thinking that a better approach might be to buy a newer graphics card and disable the on-board graphics. Rolling back to an older (potentially unsupported depending upon actual age) OS version is not ideal.
The server in question has been waiting to be "dealt with" for ages, and since I was actually "dealing" with it I didn't want to waste a day waiting for hardware. But I relented yesterday and bought a cheap ATI card from PC World for £25. However the server won't boot with it in (I would guess the PSU isn't up to the job, but can't prove it).
A summary of where I had got to by yesterday evening (before buying the card): Ubuntu 12.04.1 (Desktop) had installed fine, albeit with the signal out of range (SOOR) error while booting, and (presumably as a consequence) also giving SOOR at a terminal (Alt-Ctrl-F1). I was able to work via SSH and installed all updates, and also reconfigured the IP address (disabled NetworkManager and set a static IP). I rebooted to try some of the suggestions in this thread, but didn't catch grub and the server booted unchanged - except that now I get SOOR at the login stage as well (I guess one of the updates caused this). Also it turns out I've messed up the network settings because now I can't access via SSH either. So the server is sitting there giving SOOR locally and unresponsive via network. That was when I decided to get the graphics card on the way home from work....
So, the new card doesn't work. I'm now installing Ubuntu 12.04.1 server instead as I don't really need a GUI on it anyway, and I'd just like to get access to the data on the RAID array (see other thread). This whole mess started because the server originally had Ubuntu + Zentyal installed on it, and was no longer using any of the Zentyal functions, so was just a "tidying up" exercise that has cost me two days of work! The only reason I'm keeping the server (Fujitsu Siemens Econel 100) is because it has a good solid case with plenty of drive bays in it.
If it ain't broke....
Mark
On Thu, 29 Nov 2012 09:46:08 +0000 Mark Rogers mark@quarella.co.uk allegedly wrote:
If it ain't broke....
Fix it 'till it is.....
(Been there, done that, got the T shirt.)
You have my sympathy, much good that will do you.
Mick
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On 29/11/12 10:13, mick wrote:
On Thu, 29 Nov 2012 09:46:08 +0000 Mark Rogers mark@quarella.co.uk allegedly wrote:
If it ain't broke....
Fix it 'till it is.....
(Been there, done that, got the T shirt.)
Me too! Somehow it's only obvious that's what you're doing when it's too hard to go back to where you started...
Latest: Ubuntu server installed fine, but when it booted I got SOOR again! Luckily I had told the server installer to install SSH, and I was able to work out the IP it had been given by DHCP, so that allowed me to edit /etc/default/grub and set GRUB_GFXMODE=1024x768 followed by sudo update-grub
It now boots fine. Also, it being a server install, it included mdadm and detected all my RAID disks without me doing anything (it was RAID5 as I had suspected).
Part of the problem appears to be that grub uses a graphical terminal so adding anything at the grub prompt requires doing it blind (staring at a SOOR error). This, I believe, can be fixed with GRUB_TERMINAL=console .. also in /etc/default.grub, although I haven't tried this. (It's all very well having these settings but fixing them is a bit chicken and egg! Without SHH I'd have been pretty stuck!)
Anyway, for my next trick I will [*] install Windows 8 on this server and see how well it handles the legacy hardware :-)
[*] Oh no I bl**dy won't!
-
Chris Walker -
Keith Edmunds -
Mark Rogers -
mick -
steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk -
Tim Green