Black screen before login on boot

[Chris]

Hello all,
I a few of the Ubuntu and Kubuntu systems boot up with a black
screen....nothing shows up until the login prompt, then everything is
ok. I would think the last graphic issue that I should have is with the
initial boot process, before the GUI kicks in. Any I idea what would
cause this?

Chris

[Bruce Marshall]

Post by Chris
Hello all,
I a few of the Ubuntu and Kubuntu systems boot up with a black
screen....nothing shows up until the login prompt, then everything is
ok. I would think the last graphic issue that I should have is with the
initial boot process, before the GUI kicks in. Any I idea what would
cause this?
Chris

Try removing the "quiet splash" from the kernel line of the grub menu.lst

and replacing it with vga=normal

There's some problem with your graphics resolution.... the above should at
least get you the boot messages and you can go from there.

[Chris]

Post by Bruce Marshall

Post by Chris
Hello all,
I a few of the Ubuntu and Kubuntu systems boot up with a black
screen....nothing shows up until the login prompt, then everything is
ok. I would think the last graphic issue that I should have is with the
initial boot process, before the GUI kicks in. Any I idea what would
cause this?
Chris

Try removing the "quiet splash" from the kernel line of the grub menu.lst
and replacing it with vga=normal
There's some problem with your graphics resolution.... the above should at
least get you the boot messages and you can go from there.

THanks Bruce,
I'm going to try that now. Yeah I think your right..but what? It's
running an Intel 845G (on board). The refresh rate is pretty slow.

Is the "Quite splash" suppose to show nothing. If now what is the
"quite splash" for?

Thanks for you response.
Chris

[Bruce Marshall]

Is the "Quite splash" suppose to show nothing. ?If now what is the
"quite splash" for?

The splash shows the 'splash' screen (the *ubuntu logo on boot)

The quiet tells it not to say anything during the boot. If your splash
screen worked and you removed the 'quiet', it would show a summary of the
boot processes as the machine boots.

You might try adding the "vga=normal" at the end of the kernel line and
leave the quiet and splash. It might fix the problem.

[Chris]

Post by Bruce Marshall

Post by Chris
Is the "Quite splash" suppose to show nothing. If now what is the
"quite splash" for?

The splash shows the 'splash' screen (the *ubuntu logo on boot)
The quiet tells it not to say anything during the boot. If your splash
screen worked and you removed the 'quiet', it would show a summary of the
boot processes as the machine boots.
You might try adding the "vga=normal" at the end of the kernel line and
leave the quiet and splash. It might fix the problem.

Thanks Bruce
I'll give it a try. But I think you agree that this shouldn't happen to
begin with...correct. I checked with the graphics settings. The
settings are 1024 X 768 at 75hz...I don't have anyother option for the
sync frequency...Iwould like to try 60 and 70Hz to test it but the
option doesn't exist in the GUI config window.

Now I adjusted this before in a config file for the res. of the graphic
display...where and what was that file again?


Do you have any idea what would cause this to happen during boot....I
can understand when the GUI kicks in ...but not during boot?
Chris

[Derek Broughton]

Post by Chris

Post by Chris
Is the "Quite splash" suppose to show nothing. If now what is the
"quite splash" for?

Do you have any idea what would cause this to happen during boot....I
can understand when the GUI kicks in ...but not during boot?

My suspicion (not well grounded in actual knowledge :-) ) is that what
you're seeing _is_ the splash screen (because I agree with you that it
seems odd that everything displays _once_ the GUI kicks in - exactly when
the splash screen should disappear), so removing the splash option from the
grub line might well work.

Remember, you don't need to actually change /boot/grub/menu.lst to change
boot options. At boot time, press "E" on the boot menu line you want to
change, move to the actual kernel options line, press E again, go to end of
line and remove "splash", press enter and "B". If that works, either
modify /boot/grub/menu.lst permanently or try another splash image.

[Bruce Marshall]

Post by Chris

You might try adding the ?"vga=normal" ?at the end of the kernel line and
leave the quiet and splash. ? It might fix the problem.

Thanks Bruce
I'll give it a try. ?But I think you agree that this shouldn't happen to
begin with...correct. ?I checked with the graphics settings. ?The
settings are 1024 X 768 at 75hz...I don't have anyother option for the
sync frequency...Iwould like to try 60 and 70Hz to test it but the
option doesn't exist in the GUI config window.

Not sure what you are running there for a monitor but remember that the boot
graphics environment is totally different that the KDE environment.

Booting does it's own thing and usually uses the framebuffer logic to do the
boot. KDE uses the X server which doesn't even start until the boot process
is almost over. So your question below as to "where is that file?"
(/etc/xorg.conf) is not something you want to mess with for the boot
process. It won't change a thing in the boot and you may well mess up your
KDE environment.

Post by Chris
Now I adjusted this before in a config file for the res. of the graphic
display...where and what was that file again?

Don't touch unless a) KDE is messed up AND b) you know what you're doing.

Post by Chris
Do you have any idea what would cause this to happen during boot....I
can understand when the GUI kicks in ...but not during boot?

You're probably running an LCD and they are funny beasts. For example, my LCD
requires 1600x1200 as a native mode but for booting, it runs at 1280x1040

It may well be that the boot process is making a bad choice for settings.

Here's some other settings you might use on the kernel line:

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2007/05/24/vga-boot-modes-to-set-screen-resolution/

just add vga=xxx to the kernel line for boot, and remember the procedures
for editing on the fly in grub that Derek mentioned. If you pick a bad
value, you may need to edit the line.