Isadora won't boot. Monitor says "no signal"

[redlightbreaks]

Hi,

I installed Mint 9 Isadora on my new ZT desktop 3 weeks ago and have been loving it and running it with no problems.

But last night after my girlfriend and I were editing Path variables, and re-installing an older version of a gcc/g++ compiler we shut the computer down.
This morning I went to boot the computer and Linux won't boot.

The ZT symbol comes up, then the linux mint 'loading dots' appear, and then my monitor says "No Signal" and there simply seems to be nothing going on!
The computer is still on at this point, but clearly not trying to talk to the monitor.

Any help would be great!

[oobetimer]

You could try an nomodeset option ..

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 65#p333294

[redlightbreaks]

I'm not booting from a live cd, the installation has been working fine for 3 weeks.

But I'll give it a try.

[redlightbreaks]

yeah pushing tab at boot doesn't do anything like what that guide shows.

I think that thread was about booting from cd.

[oobetimer]

yeah pushing tab at boot doesn't do anything like what that guide shows.

I think that thread was about booting from cd.

Try shift button and then e button. You can edit the /etc/default/grub file via liveCD also.

[redlightbreaks]

I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to be seeing when pushing shift, but it does flash a bunch of dialog across the screen, but immediately after that it goes to sleep, so e didn't do anything I could see.

I can boot from the live cd and make edits to my current installation?

Sorry for all the newbness here...

[redlightbreaks]

I put in the cd to try a no mode set... but when I go to set the options for Boot from local drive I simply get

.localboot 0x80

so I added nomodeset
.localboot 0x80 nomodeset
pushed enter, and get the same results.

Am I being thick here or could it be something else?

[Hatch]

Do not boot from a CD. Take the CD out and boot normally until you get to the GRUB screen (the one that lists all your operating systems--it'll say "LinuxMint", "LinuxMint (recovery mode)", etc). Add "nomodeset" to the line that starts with "vmlinuz" (or similar) and then a bunch of version numbers. You'll see other keyword-looking things on that line; add "nomodeset" (minus the quotes) among them.

Good luck!

[redlightbreaks]

Thanks Hatch,

I wasn't booting from cd before I was booting from hard drive.

Also I only have one operating system on this machine... Linux Mint. I don't get a grub screen or anything, The monitor simply goes to sleep while booting, and that's it.

It's not the monitor's problem because when I have a cd in the drive I'm able to get the the screen where it gives you the options of launching form cd or to check the cd for errors or to boot from localhost as I was showing above.

[redlightbreaks]

ok now I get it, *holding* shift gets you to the GRUB screen!

but I added nomodeset and now I'm just getting the terminal, getting close though!

Still have NO idea why this suddenly became an issue this morning...

[Hatch]

EDIT: Oops, looks like you found an easier way while I was typing! Can you post your xorg log file? It's probably located at /var/log/Xorg.1.log. Ignore the rest of this post

Looks like you need to boot from the live CD and edit you /etc/default/grub file as oobetimer suggested. See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2 ... file)33294 for more details.

Commenting out the GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT option will allow you to see the GRUB screen, which will allow you to add the nomodeset option. And just to address the elephant in the room, no, I have no idea why you'd need to add this option after your installation has been working fine for weeks.

[redlightbreaks]

Well the file is pretty long! And the only machines I could scp it to require a vpn, which I don't know how to use from the terminal.

But I can tell you some of the warnings I see in the file

(WW) AllowEmptyInput is on, devices using drivers 'kbd', 'mouse' or 'vmmouse will be disabled.
(WW) Disabling Keyboard0
(WW) Disabling Mouse0
.
.
.
(WW) Warning, couldn't open module nvidia
(EE) Failed to load module "nvidia" (module does not exist, 0)
(EE) No drivers available.

Fatal server error:
no screens found

.
.
.

Any of that useful?

[redlightbreaks]

Does anyone know if there was a kernel update recently? Just seems weird that everything was working fine for the last 3 weeks!

[Hatch]

Looks like X is attempting to load the proprietary nvidia driver. Are you using an nvidia graphics card? Have you installed the official nvidia drivers?

At any rate, you should be able to get back to your graphical desktop by (at least temporarily) using a different driver. From the terminal, do:

Code: Select all

cd /etc/X11
sudo cp Xorg.conf Xorg.conf.bak-11-3-2010
sudo nano Xorg.conf

Locate where it says 'Driver "nvidia"' in the "Device" section and change "nvidia" to "nv" or "vesa" (try them in that order). Ctrl-O followed by Enter to save, then Ctrl-X to exit. Then reboot.

(sorry if any of this is insulting to your intelligence--no idea of your skill level, and I figure it's better to provide too much info than too little)

[redlightbreaks]

Hey hatch, trust me I'll never complain about too much info =)

Well that got gnome back for me, you're a genius!

However I still have to hold shift and set do setnomode in order to get the monitor to not sleep during boot...

I'll download the nvidia drivers now but the whole thing has be a bit baffled as I already downloaded the drivers weeks ago.

Thanks hatch.

[redlightbreaks]

OK I edited /etc/default/grub file to "profile" instead of "quick splash" and now I don't have to hold shift. I also downloaded a NON current nvidia driver... the current one caused issues with many cool gnome features.

Many thanks to oobitemer and especially hatch for their expertise and time!

For those that come afterwards here is the condensed version of what I had to do... see above for more details.

1) hold shift down before mint starts boot
2) this should bring you to the grub window, push e while highlighting the normal boot option
3) edit the line with "vmlinuz" (or similar) that has something like "quick splash" at the end of it, delete "quick splash" and enter "profile" (without quotes)
4) now you should be able to boot to the terminal, log into your mint user account
5) if your /var/log/Xorg.1.log file looks like mine did... your in luck. we have the same problem
6) open /etc/X11/xorg.conf for editing.
7) Locate where it says 'Driver "nvidia"' in the "Device" section and change "nvidia" to "nv" or "vesa" (try them in that order)
open /etc/default/grub for editing
9) find the variable set to "quick splash" and change it to "profile" (no quotes)
10) reboot!

With any luck this will bring back your desktop and graphical interface, however it will probably look like crap.
Go to Menu - Administration - Hardware Drivers and get the 2nd to most current nvidia driver.

reboot!

pat yourself on the back... your girlfriend isn't going to make you switch back to Windows

[redlightbreaks]

Can we set this thread to SOLVED?