Hello, I just finished installing Ubuntu Fiesty Fawn on my friends old Dell Inspiron 8200. Everything seemed to be working fine until I downloaded beryl, and then I enabled the graphics and in loaded a driver for graphics card or something, then it asked me to reboot which I did, then everything loads, but right when it gets to the loading screen I hear the main menu "drum" noise, but my screen becomes completely black and I have to manually shut down my computer. I was wondering might my graphics card be incomparable, or my driver? Also I need to know how to get into Ubuntu, because the screen keeps getting black, if there is like a safe mode I can use? Keep in mind I am very new to linux, Thanks.

Hello,

I don't know if I can help you, but I'll try. If not, someone more experienced shall hopefully take over. I have had issues like this before, and there is usually a simple solution. First off, can you specify what you mean by black screen? Do you mean that it's completely black, or can you see a prompt?

my screen pretty much turns off, there is no terminal prompt. When I turn on my computer,it goes through all of the right start up steps, then when its about to go to the menu where you type your username, the screen turns off, then I hear the "drum" music thats prompted when the menu pops up. So I'm guessing that it has something to do with my graphics card.

I see in your post that you've just installed Ubuntu. Did you install the system updates before you installed the graphics card driver or did you install the graphics driver first? The order is important.

CTL+ALT+F1

You should have some terminals running on F1 to F7

This should get you to a console.

I don't quite know if I did do a system update, I installed Ubuntu then loaded all the packages from the CD. Is that what you mean, or was it something else?

Did you get a message telling you that some software updates were available? If you did, then these would have been downloaded from the net, not from the cd. Among these would have been a kernel update. The point is that after every kernel update, you must re-install the graphics driver if you have installed it, otherwise you won't be able to log into X.

no i don't believe I have done that, should I reinstall and try again or is there a command that could help me out, because I can get into a command prompt when I press ctr-alt-f1.

You could try installing again. But this time don't install Beryl. It doesn't usually cause any trouble, but it is very new and has been known to do funny things. Personally, I find that it has some oddball effects on some of my programmes, and is a bit thirsty on system resources anyway. If you still have problems, then yes my guess is that it's something to do with your graphics card. In that case, you might find that installing another distribution would solve your problem (maybe Simply Mepis or Mint Linux). To be honest, I think the situation is solvable from the command prompt - but we'd need to know exactly what the trouble is, and it'd take someone more knowledgeable than myself to guide you through the procedure.
Whatever you decide, post what happens.

Good luck!

ok so i'm just going to reinstall for now and wait for the new version of Ubuntu to come out, which is like 4 days, then I will see what happens. Thanks for all your help.

No, don't wait for the new Ubuntnu. Install Feisty again and then do a system upgrade later. The reason I say this is that, although the new Ubuntu has been thoroughly tested, there are often issues with a new release that are only seen once it has been launched to the general public. Feisty is totally reliable, so I advise you strongly to install that now and wait around a month before you install Gusty Gibbon. Upgrading an already installed system is an easy enough procedure to do, and you don't need to do it from a cd, and nor do you need to uninstall anything you've already put on your computer. So, go on - re-install now!

To install again won't help solve the actual issue. This sounds like a classic case of X causing headaches.

It worked fine before, just not after something was changed. Your logs are your friend. They will tell you exactly what you need to know.

Switch to another run level and look at the logs; or boot into single user mode and do the same from there.

Hope you get it working.

Regards