HOWTO : Fix blank screen on Ubuntu 10.04

You may experienced blank screen when bootup a Live CD of Ubuntu 10.04 if you have legacy display card no matter it is an Intel, nVidia, ATi or others. You can fix it by adding a Kernel parameter.



The Kernel parameter for different display cards is :



Intel display card - i915.modeset=1

nVidia display card - nomodeset

Generic - xforcevesa



Boot up - Live CD



Step 1 :

Bootup and press any key at the screen of a little keyboard and a human with a circle at the bottom of the screen.



Step 2 :

Press F6 and then Esc.



Step 3 :

Append one of the above Kernel parameter at the end of the command line.



Step 4 :

Select try out Ubuntu (i.e. the first option of the boot menu).



Boot up - after installation



You may also encounter blank screen after installation with the above method.



Step a :

Bootup with Live CD and follows the Step (1) to (4) as above mentioned.



Step b :

After bootup, mount the hard drive at the "Place".



Step c :

Open a terminal and issue the following command -



sudo nano /etc/default/grub



Step d :

Locate the following line and append the Kernel parameter and make the output looking like as the following if you have an Intel display card -



GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash i915.modeset=1"



OR



Step d(1) : (Optional)



sudo nano /boot/grub/grub.cfg



Locate the "linux" tag and add the parameter at the end of "quiet splash". Then jump to Step f.



Step e :

Save and exit. Then issue the following command -



sudo update-grub



Step f :

Then reboot the system without Live CD.



If Step a to f does not work, just do Step a, b, d(1) and then jump to Step f.



That's all! See you.