GRUB loader -> blank screen
 

Hi all again

I have installed GRUB loader on my computer. Every now and then I boot up with GRUB and it blank screens before it actually starts booting the kernel.

I don't know which info I should include here.... but if you ask me then I will be more than willing to put it up! :)

Thanks guys/girls

Hmmm... it may not actually be Grub that is the problem here...

Does your computer blank screen at the Grub menu, or is it after you tell it to boot Linux and you normally see startup messages flying all over/bootsplash screens?

Yeah, also, how does your boot sequence go? Because on my laptop my CD then the FD and finally the HD is booted, and so checking the devices first makes the screen go blank a couple of seconds. How long is the blanking process?

Boot sequence : floppy, cdrom, hdd

it blanks screen after grub tells it to load linux.. But if I reset and do it again most of the time its ok

Do you send some extra parameters to the kernel when loading linux?

One that might be important here is vga=xxx. It might be so that you have a kernel that doesn't have framebuffer support for consoles and when you tell the kernel to run in say vga=791 then the screen goes blank.

I think it would be good to post your /boot/grub/menu.lst here.

...arghh!! sorry!! it was actually lilo!!! > < I thought i installed grub but its lilo!!

anyway here it is:

# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Wed May 5 22:41:33 2004


message = /boot/message
timeout = 80
prompt
default = Linux
boot = /dev/hdc

image = /boot/vmlinuz
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: Linux###
label = Linux
initrd = /boot/initrd
optional
root = /dev/hdc2
vga = 0x317
append = "splash=silent desktop hda=ide-scsi hdalun=0 showopts"

other = /dev/hdc1
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: Windows###
label = Windows

image = /boot/vmlinuz
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: Failsafe###
label = Failsafe
initrd = /boot/initrd
optional
root = /dev/hdc2
vga = normal
append = "showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off nosmp noapic maxcpus=0 3"

image = /boot/memtest.bin
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: Memory_Test###
label = Memory_Test
optional
append = ""

I think its something to do with the splash screen but I don't exactly know why. I put the parameters to splash=0 and now it boots up fine... Can anyone explain why?

Did you used to get a splash screen on boot up? I know you said it blanked out, but did that happen always?

What effects did changing the line to splash=0 have?

If you want to see your usual bootsplash, you might just need to change your resolution of the frame buffer that you have setup in LILO now. Change your vga=0x317 to vga=0x314

Ok.. .let me try 0x314. I switched it to splash=0 and all was fine. It booted up fine without the stupid splash screen. But if it wasn't then sometimes when linux was choosen to be booted the screen would just blank out...

Ok i tried it with 0x314 which was 800x600 the problem is still there. Also, I found out that splash=0 actually doesn't get rid of the problem. Even with 0x314 and splash=0 the problem is still there.

I think it might be the linux kernel? I installed redhat9 and there were no problems - could it be that the different distros don't both support my graphics card? (Radeon 9600) I remember on redhat the driver was VESA generic where as the suse one recognised it as RV350 or something on those lines.

I will probably compile a new kernel this weekend and see how this goes, anyone else with ideas?

Try setting it so splash=verbose

Recompiling the kernel may help, make sure you enable frame buffer support...

Yeah... and i will probably compile lotsa other stuff into kernel...
I am actually running legacy ata suport but my harddrive is SATA, so maybe compiling the kernel with sata support might be a good idea.

If/when you do recompile your kernel, make sure you are including support for RAM disks and initrd images, as well as including frame buffer support. Those are all needed to get a bootsplash working correctly I believe :)