Ubuntu(studio)8.04.2 - Stops loading at about 70% on progress bar
 

Hi,
Packard Bell EasyNote Laptop F5280HR
Celleron 2.8Ghz
Video adapter is a SiSM661FX (SiS661FX on SiS website)
768Mb Memory Installed (64Mb of this used for graphics)

Managed to install Ubuntustudio 8.04.2 eventually by adding vga=771 to boot command.

On booting from hard disk loading freezes at about 70% and I don't get as far as a login or any desktop, for that matter.

It freezes as shown below (last 5 lines shown):
I think I have a screen resolution problem.

After booting into "recovery" and dropping into shell...

The output of
is:
Do I need to set the screen resolution from the command line? How do I do this & what should I set it to? 800x600?

Any help appreciated.

Welcome to LQ!

Try the boot time kernel option

pci=norom


If that does not work

stay at the command line and

#apt-get update
#apt-get upgrade

(you may need a different kernel)

You can edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

modprobe agpgart-sis

Thank you for the welcome amani.
It is a pleasure to be involved in Linux - I have 3 desktops running one form of Linux or another.

To enable the "get upgrade" option you describe I presume I will have to activate network manager (or the network) from the command-line to get on-line. How do I do that?

The "pci=norom" didn't work - still freezes at "* saving VESA state..."

returned "module could not be found", but maybe I need to be on-line first & get updates?

First try - thanks for help so far.

agpgart-sis is your driver module.

Then stick with vesa or the default... you can use 'fix xserver' in the trouble shooting mode.

For Network

How do you want to connect?

pppoe (type that at the terminal and hit the tab key twice)?

See http://www.ubuntugeek.com/ubuntu-net...mand-line.html

[ editing in vim /vi
press i to insert
esc to stop inserting
:wq to save and quit file]

Login Screen but still no Desktop
 

Hi amani,

I've got a bit further forward in that I can now get a Login Screen (complete with background picture) but no desktop.

The problem with the progress bar sticking at 70% was solved by using the solution described at https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ub...il/017581.html
Once SAVE_VBE_STATE=true was changed to false in /etc/default/acpi-support that problem was solved & I got through to the Login Screen.

With an unmodified xorg.conf, after login & selecting Gnome (or Gnome-safe) session, I get a grey screen with the top left quarter white.
Adding: in the Device section of xorg.conf makes no difference. Adding makes things worse and I drop into a grey screen immediately.

I have updated & upgraded the system & & both return "module not found".

Is it possible a driver is not being loaded? Or am I just suffering a resolution problem?

I noticed there is a specific open-source driver for my SiS card at http://www.winischhofer.eu/linuxsisvga.shtml but I would have to download & install this from the command-line and I am a newbie!

Any ideas?

Many thanks.

modprobe sisfb

use sisfb instead of sis in xorg.conf if no error is reported

Post output of lsmod

sisfb - module failed to load
 

Hi,

did not return any error but when I entered:
in Device Section of xorg.conf I get the warning:
BUT... when I tried modprobe sis-agp and didn't specify a driver in xorg.conf it worked & I got a desktop. Rebooted twice successfully.
***UPDATE - following day I'm back to no desktop! And repeating what I did above doesn't get me back to one! Very puzzled. (My laptop battery is pretty much useless - might that have something to do with it?)

When I did have a desktop I had no sound!

No sound applet is loaded in sys-tray but having checked alsamixer in terminal all the relevant channels seem to be unmuted and have plenty of level.

Running lshw in terminal gives:
The output of lsmod:
That's all I can see now but before I briefly had the desktop working I saw an entry:
But that's no longer in the list!

Thanks again