Graphics Problem
 

I have a desktop PC connected to my plasma TV. The image displayed was a stretched 4:3. In a bid to try to get a true widescreen image I applied what I thought was the right graphics card driver but now I get no discernible image after the boot-up screen with the Ubuntu logo so I can't log in.

Am I looking at a re-install?

Many thanks.

well what is your card and what driver did you install ???
and what version of ubuntu are you using ?

I'm using Ubuntu 9.04. Graphics card is a Radeon 9000. I ran this:

sudo apt-get install xorg-driver-fglrx

as shown in this thread:

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/per...on-9000-a.html

I'm afraid I may have been rather hasty in doing this.

It should be fine if you do the following:

Start Ubuntu (into your messed up log-in screen)
Press Ctrl + Alt + F2
Log in
Enter: sudo apt-get remove xorg-driver-fglrx
Reboot (enter "reboot" or press Ctrl + Alt + Del)

This should turn your Ubuntu system back to normal.

Now to fix the stretched-4:3-image issue: I think you just need to set a widescreen display resolution (Gnome menu: System -> Preference -> Display).

Thank you TITiAN but no luck. I press Ctrl + Alt + F2 at the Ubuntu logo screen and what appears to be the boot-up code is shown but then the messed up log-in screen re-appears. Pressing Ctrl + Alt + F2 there has no effect.

I was rather hasty and complacent in installing that driver I think but there was no widescreen option in the display settings menu, just 4:3.

Having said that this is the machine that I'm using to try to learn more about Linux so I won't lose any data if I have to re-install.

Many thanks for helping :) are there likely to be any further options before I re-install?

I re-installed in the end, thanks for your time though :)

For next time, wait till the system has booted and you're supposed to login; that was what TITiAN indicated. After that <ctrl><alt><Fn> (n is 1..6) will take you to a console where you can login. If <ctrl><alt><F2> does not work, try one of the other ones (e.g. <ctrl><alt><F1>)

<ctrl><alt><F7> will take you back to the graphical environment

Thanks for that info :)

I'm back to the stretched 4:3 image now. All of the info I've read on getting drivers for a Radeon 9000 is beyond my ability in Linux, is there an idiot's guide lurking anywhere?

Maybe I should just get a modern card ;)

I don't think you should get another card because of that. Did you try different screen resolutions? (The stretched image is the original issue here, after all).

Hi TITiAN, I only get two 4:3 options in the display manager. I'm just wondering about using NDISWrapper (can't get to the PC just now my son is watching the US Open ;) )

NDISwrapper is intended to be used for:

Using Windows network-card drivers on Linux.

That's not to say it can't be used for other types of hardware drivers, and this has been speculated about here and there, but basically, it's not the approach you want to take, unless you're interested in being the first to do something like that, or be really eccentric :p

I have a couple suggestions, but they are purely based on my experience with nVIDIA cards, so I have no clue as to whether or not ATI cards will support the options I know of.

First, as mentioned above, you want to add more screen resolution options to your video configuration. The "automatic tools" method of doing this doesn't always get everything right, AND/OR doesn't necessarily produce every possible combination of options you could possibly use.

Check the man page for your driver (or the online docs) to see what other options the driver accepts, specifically ones that allow you to specify the "TVOutFormat" and "TVStandard", which allow you to change the video-out format amongst things like VGA, S-Video, composite, etc., and also to set the "standard" to such things like PAL, NTSC, etc, though if you DO have a screen image, albeit the wrong size/resolution, these are not likely to change anything, because, again as mentioned already, the issue is image size/resolution.

I think you need to manually (or by some automatic tool that actually *works*) add more resolutions to the possibilities you have available.

Sasha

Yeh I realised that shortly after I posted. I'm getting my wotsits in a twist!

Thanks, that gives me something to mull over :)

X is supposed to run without any configuration file for most users. Please try the following:
Move the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf somewhere else so X won't use it.
Restart X or reboot.

If this doesn't enable more display modes or even makes your setup worse, move the configuration file back:
Any luck with this?

Moving that file has cause the screen to go black after the Ubuntu splash screen. I moved it back using the ctrl + alt + Fn method to log in.

OK then please post the contents of that file here. Maybe the settings in there just restrict you to the said few resolutions.