Ubuntu 8.04: Getting blank white screen when trying to open. Have Windows XP,
 

I'm a complete newbie at this. I just wanted to try Ubuntu and maybe a few other distros before leaving Windows completely. Installed Ubuntu with Wubi installer and used for about a month. Added updates and some apps, still ran fine. Now all of a sudden I can't go farther than entering my username and password. That's when I get the blank white screen and that's as far as I can go. I've uninstalled Ubuntu until I can get some insight into the above problem.

Well... now that you uninstalled it, it's pretty hard to pin down the problem.
Could have been a compiz bug. The easy solution would have been to disable compiz:
Start gnome in safe mode and disable the desktop effects.

As I said, I'm a complete newbie and don't know a thing about doing what you're talking about. At this time I am just looking for a replacement OS for Windows, just to have an operating system. I do intend to get into the inner workings of Linux at some time in the future, but not at this time. I just wondered if it was something I did that made Ubuntu blank out.

welcome to linux ddotyp.

It might have been something you did or maybe not,just a sour update.

I encourage you to try multiple distros since you uninstalled anyway.

I'd stick with the major distros at first.They have gotten really good lately.Get your >iso's from here :http://distrowatch.com/.

My distro's dujor are the new suse,mandriva,and centos.

Live cd's are always cool too.Knoppix,Dsl,mepis,slax.

Puppy live has a utility you can burn you own custom live cd.Very cool stuff.

Same Problem
 

I too have had the same problem. After an upgrade I could get into GNOME safe mode with native resolution. Now after updating I can not, all I get is the white screen of death as I call it or as it has been called.

I was just trying to figure out how to uninstall the ATI drivers from the command line. I am not all that good with the command like so some coaching may be needed

The problem started when I updated and installed the ATI Drivers. Compiz seems to detect 3d acceleration and it seems to freak something out on both ends now. Any help would be much appreciated. I just want to get my GUI back and backup some files for a hard drive upgrade on my notebook and a fresh install of the newest stable version of Ubuntu.

Thanks MacPointMan

being able to see your desktop
 

MacPointMan: to see your desktop we will need to temporarily disable your driver in the xorg.conf.

when the white screen starts up and the system has finished loading press ctrl+alt+F2 and this will put you into the command line.

It will first of all ask you to put in your username and password.

Then type in:

sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

scroll down and find the line

Driver "fglrx"

replace this with:

Driver "ati"

exit this by pressing control+x and then save (y) and press enter to confirm

Now type sudo reboot to restart the computer.

This will not fix the problem, however it will allow you to run ubuntu desktop in a low graphics mode where it may be easier to solve the problem, the first thing I would do is disable the effects.

I hope this helps.