White screen display on monitor
 

I am new to ubuntu and linux . Probably mine is a simple proble. I went throught the forum and dint find any solution regarding my Distro.

My problem is that after installation of xubuntu 6.10 and subsequent booting of pc and logging into the OS all i see is a white display on the screen.
Prior to installation i had this problem when i was checking the LIVECD of this Distro.
Inorder to get the desktop back i had to press F3 in the LIve CD mode and change the disply settings from VGA to my standard 800 x 640.
Since after installation i dont get the option of changing the display I cannot see the desktop but instead a white screen?

I have this white screen display problem appearing at the logon page. I tried with Mandriva also and still have the same problem. BUt i have no problems with windows xp as i have dual boot on my PC . Should it be a graphics card problem which gets affected with linux.
But then why does that happen coz with Xubuntu 6.10 Live CD option i have perfect display. And only when i install it on the HDD i have this white display interlaced by lines.
Also during the installation of Mandriva when i use the option to test the display i get perfect display . Its only when the OS is installed the white screen appears on logon.

IS there a command in Mandriva that i can try and change the display settings in failsafe mode and find the perfect one?

Thanks

at the grub prompt press e for edit and add
video=vesa this is a kernel parameter

otherwise boot as faisafe, or add the word single to grub
then
as root run drakx11
and choose vesa driver

also run drak3d and disable 3d effects

Both of the commands did not work.

On the GUI when i press e only the timer stops and there is no option to change the video setting and when i go into the failsafe mode and type the command drakx11 or type run drakx11 both show the error "command not found". I am using the Mandriva 2006 distro.

at grub prompte press e, edit the line and add manually video=vesa
at the end of the first line

You need to become root first
Type su
then drakx11

Sorry i forgot to tell you . I had logged into root using su command and after that i had entered the above commands which resulted in the errors.

Is the distro image corrupted ?

unlikely but possible

did you install the bash completion?
try
/usr/bin/drak then pres tab tab to complete name

try to locate with
ls -l /usr/bin/drak*

am pretty sure it is drakx11 not drakex11

if nothing works
try as root in failsafe mode
drakconf (then go in menus to select video card as standard vesa)

is the vesa option working

How can i check i have installed bash completion.

I tried /usr/bin/drak and there was no response on the monitor when i pressed the TAB key.
I tried /usr/bin/ and pressed the TAB key and the pc was asking me a question "Do you want to display all 368 choices (y or n)? "

ls -l /usr/bin/drak* Yield the error message "No such file or directory found"

ANd drakconf yields the result "Command not found"

The only command that comes when i type drak and tab is
drakupdate_fstab.

So probably the drak command might me missing in this distro.
What do you say ? Proceed with this distro. Even if it is gonna take time i wanna solve this problem.

if you have booted as failsafe, then done su, then obtained the # sign
and if this command does not return as below, something is really wrong
These should not be missing

this is really wrong if you are root

I can only advise to reinstall. Where did you get the cds/dvd from? Maybe get them from somewhere else
During the install press <alt><ftrl><F1 to F4> and look for suspecious messages
Are you sure the HD partition has no bad sectors?
Something fishy is happening

Yes as suspected the distro was bad. I had received it along with a computer magazine.Any ways i got it reinstalled Mandrake 10.1 and the monitor works perfectly.
Thanks for all the help and support.

for the sake of security and functionality look at upgrading
(10.1, then 2005, then 2006, now 2007)
Plus 10,1 was a bit buggy compared to newer versions

Is there anywhere I can get the newer version in full?
Tks

question already asked in this forum
look for ftp (mandriva website for the free version download)
or bittorent (for example see linuxtracker.org)