Mint 13 Black Boot Screen

RiverDog · 11-08-2012, 11:59 AM

I’m having a problem installing Mint 13 Cinnamon 64bit and haven’t found a solution either on the Mint Forum or on Google. I can use the live CD with no problem but if I install it I just get a black screen with a small white line at the top left of the screen. I have done two installs formatting the disk both times with no difference. I took 13 off and can install and use Mint 12 with no problem. I am also dual booting Windows 7 with no problems. I have tried the “ctrl-alt-F8 keys” and nothing happens. It uses the grub boot loader so I can pick windows with no problem. My system has a Gigabyte GA-880GA-UD3H board coupled with a AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition Thuban 3.2GHz processor. I have 4 GB memory, 1 SATA 1.5 TB hard drive, 1 SATA 2TB hard drive, and a IDE 100GB hard drive. I have Win7 loaded on the 1.5 HD and put Mint on the IDE drive. The video card is an integrated ATI Radeon HD 4250 GPU. Does anybody have any ideas or should I just stay with 12?

Jodell88 · 11-08-2012, 02:12 PM

It says that the Mint 13 boot screen is black by default. Does it show the login screen after a while?

RiverDog · 11-08-2012, 02:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jodell88

It says that the Mint 13 boot screen is black by default. Does it show the login screen after a while?

It sat over night and never changed.

Jodell88 · 11-08-2012, 03:09 PM

This may work.

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=113662

Linux and AMD graphics cards are a bit like oil and water IMO.

IGemini · 11-08-2012, 09:49 PM

Because Cinnamon uses Compiz it's a bit more demanding on the GPU, I'm guessing AMD hasn't come far enough to do proper compositing in their drivers. If you really want to go with Mint 13, maybe the MATE version will work better.

Jodell88 · 11-08-2012, 09:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IGemini

Because Cinnamon uses Compiz it's a bit more demanding on the GPU, I'm guessing AMD hasn't come far enough to do proper compositing in their drivers. If you really want to go with Mint 13, maybe the MATE version will work better.

He can't even reach the login screen so what DE he has is irrelevant.

RiverDog · 11-09-2012, 07:59 AM

What I can't understand, it works perfectly if I'm using the DVD live version.

Jodell88 · 11-09-2012, 08:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RiverDog

What I can't understand, it works perfectly if I'm using the DVD live version.

Probably something got screwed up up in auto-detection during the installation. It happens from time to time.

lxskllr · 11-09-2012, 08:08 AM

Are you using an actual CD, or a USB drive? I ask because I had a similar issue with one of my USB sticks. The live session worked fine, but the install didn't work right. A different USB stick fixed it. Your guess is as good as mine, but it's something to consider.

RiverDog · 11-09-2012, 08:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lxskllr

Are you using an actual CD, or a USB drive? I ask because I had a similar issue with one of my USB sticks. The live session worked fine, but the install didn't work right. A different USB stick fixed it. Your guess is as good as mine, but it's something to consider.

I burnt it to a DVD. I think I will download it and try again. I was a network admin at one time and switched the company from Novell to SUSE and run into the same problem. It had a perfect display during the install and couldn't start the graphic interface until I redid some video config files. That was nearly 10 years ago. It almost has to be a video problem but I can’t find any solution. I asked this on the Mint forums two days ago and didn’t even get any replies there.

Jodell88 · 11-09-2012, 09:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RiverDog

I burnt it to a DVD. I think I will download it and try again. I was a network admin at one time and switched the company from Novell to SUSE and run into the same problem. It had a perfect display during the install and couldn't start the graphic interface until I redid some video config files. That was nearly 10 years ago. It almost has to be a video problem but I can’t find any solution. I asked this on the Mint forums two days ago and didn’t even get any replies there.

You generally don't have to mess with config files these days unless you want to do something specific.

I'll pass the 'nomodeset' parameter on the boot line in grub and see if that works.

RiverDog · 11-09-2012, 10:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jodell88

You generally don't have to mess with config files these days unless you want to do something specific.

I'll pass the 'nomodeset' parameter on the boot line in grub and see if that works.

I tried the nomodeset change and the system still didn't load. This is the first I tried Linux in many years. I really thought the new versions would be almost Plug and Play by now and it seemed it with the DVD. Everything worked as it should.
A thought just hit me. Would it possibly be a problem with the drive? This is an old IDE 100GB that I had sitting in a drawer for a few years. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong thing...

Jodell88 · 11-09-2012, 10:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RiverDog

I tried the nomodeset change and the system still didn't load. This is the first I tried Linux in many years. I really thought the new versions would be almost Plug and Play by now and it seemed it with the DVD. Everything worked as it should.
A thought just hit me. Would it possibly be a problem with the drive? This is an old IDE 100GB that I had sitting in a drawer for a few years. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong thing...

It could be.