[mrq201]

Ok, i have a strange problem. I downloaded ubuntu 8.10 onto a cd, so I am guessing I have a live cd. I installed ubuntu onto an 80 gig harddrive using a Dell optiplex GX170 i believe. The specs on that computer was P3, 512 ram. Everything was installed ok and perfectly on the harddrive.

I brought the harddrive home, and hooked it up to my dimension 2400 which has 1.5MB of ram p4. 2.8GHz. I got to the screen where I had to input my username and password, after I did that, the only thing i saw was the mouse, and that background wallpaper.

I proceeded to reinstall it unbuntu from the live CD, but that did not work either.

I know the cd is not defective because I ran the tests.

Any help or advice would be appreciated. If anymore information is needed from me, I would be glad to assist you with it.

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Sounds like there might be a Dell Video Driver issue. I have had the hardest time getting Ubuntu 8.10 to install on an old Compaq machine I have lying around because the internal video chip does not seem to like whatever driver Ubuntu is trying to use to communicate with it. The CD will boot, but I get no video at all.

To see if you are in the same boat as I am, try to check if Ubuntu can run directly off of the live CD.

• To do this simply put the CD in the drive and reboot the machine.
• It should detect the CD and bring you to the Live CD boot screen.
• From here choose the first option Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer
• Let it boot all the way in.

If you are not able to see the desktop, menu bar, or anything else, then it will not work by default on that system. I have not yet found a workaround for my issues, but I have found other linux distros that would work on it. One of them is DSL. I would say the name and what DSL stands for, but since this is a family friendly site, I will only say that the last 2 letters stand for "small linux". DSL is a 50MB linux distro that is sized so that it can fit onto a business card CD. While installing it to a HDD is unsupported, I have had much luck getting it installed on the Compaq machine that would not run Ubuntu as well as installing it in a virtual machine in Microsoft Virtual PC 2007. (Ubuntu has issues with that install as well, but there are workarounds for it.)

If you want to experiment with it, you can get it here.

Good luck!

[SongCloud]

Sounds like there might be a Dell Video Driver issue. I have had the hardest time getting Ubuntu 8.10 to install on an old Compaq machine I have lying around because the internal video chip does not seem to like whatever driver Ubuntu is trying to use to communicate with it. The CD will boot, but I get no video at all.

To see if you are in the same boat as I am, try to check if Ubuntu can run directly off of the live CD.

• To do this simply put the CD in the drive and reboot the machine.
• It should detect the CD and bring you to the Live CD boot screen.
• From here choose the first option Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer
• Let it boot all the way in.

If you are not able to see the desktop, menu bar, or anything else, then it will not work by default on that system. I have not yet found a workaround for my issues, but I have found other linux distros that would work on it. One of them is DSL. I would say the name and what DSL stands for, but since this is a family friendly site, I will only say that the last 2 letters stand for "small linux". DSL is a 50MB linux distro that is sized so that it can fit onto a business card CD. While installing it to a HDD is unsupported, I have had much luck getting it installed on the Compaq machine that would not run Ubuntu as well as installing it in a virtual machine in Microsoft Virtual PC 2007. (Ubuntu has issues with that install as well, but there are workarounds for it.)

If you want to experiment with it, you can get it here.

Good luck!

[mrq201]

UGHHHHH... i figured it would be a video driver or something so. I will what you said about running it from the live CD and will let you know. But I do believe its th video card issue... mannn im depressed. Thanks again

[mrq201]

Ok, i chose the first option and this time it did not load up to where I have to see the user name and password.. it is just showing a black screen and the mouse pointer
i also tried the last option (i think boot first from harddisk or something so.. i am seeing the username screen and password screen..... and again, i am seeing the mouse pointer and the orange wallpaper

Edited by mrq201, 12 April 2009 - 01:40 PM.

[SongCloud]

Yep. Sounds like the default drivers that Ubuntu has loaded on the live CD don't want to play nice with the Dell Video card/chip.

Check out the Dell site to see if they have any linux drivers. Also check around online for any possible workarounds for your system.

If nothing else, might have to try another distro. DSL that I recommended earlier or possibly even something like Puppy linux. There are a bunch out there.

Sorry that I can't be of more help.

[mrq201]

so i just read that the dimension 2400 is useless for linux...... interesting huh.. oh well, i guess ill install 2003 server on the hard drive

[hawklord]

have you tried formating the whole drive and starting afresh - and not just installing onto the partitions that are already there,

my experiance with linux is that you can't really install it to one machine then transfer the hdd to another different one and expect it to work without any problems

my guess is that the dell uses intel 82845G extreme graphics and ubuntu carries the drivers on the live cd, so it could be another issue

[mrq201]

Actually, i got it to work by using a command that removes the compiz or whatever that is. But then i realised, by doing that I wont be able to use the desktop effects so i installed 8.04, hardy version. Everything works right now. I do have an issue with getting the compiz settings manager to work now though. I guess its something i gotta look into very deeper

[chamber]

You coul use Compiz Check to see if it will work properly on your system.

Should also give you reasons why it will not.

[mrq201]

oh trust me.. ive done all that.. should i copy and paste it over here because I did paste it onto another forum and I have not gotten a response

this is what i sent but no one answered me

Complex compiz question
Ok here is the deal. When i first installed ubuntu 8.10, I had issues after i typed in the user name and password. After i typed in the user name and password, all i received was the default ubuntu wallpaper and the mouse cursor.

I did some searching and found a fix for it.
The fix i used were these commands

sudo apt-get remove compiz
sudo apt-get remove compiz-core

So after i used this fix, i was able to boot up into ubuntu. Everything was fine and dandy until i started to play around with it and read forums. Oh yeah, i am a big newbie to linux.

So i tried the compiz command and i got this

Checking for Xgl: not present
Detected PCI ID for VGA
Checking for texture from_pixmap: not present.
Trying again with indirect rendering:
Checking for texture_from_pixmap: present
Checking for non power of two support: present
Checking for Composite extension: present.
Comparing resolution (1600x1050) to maximum 3D textue size (204: Passed
Checking for Software Rasterizer: Not present.
Checking for nVidia: Not present.
Checking for FBConfig: present.
Checking for Xgl: not present.
/usr/bin/compiz: 422 /usrs/bin/compiz.real: not found

If anyone can assist me with anything, I would very much appreciate it.

Edited by mrq201, 14 April 2009 - 09:52 PM.

[chamber]

ok,

Few things to try,

Try re installing compiz again, through the package manager would be best as you would get all the dependencies you needed.

Then,

sudo apt-get install xserver-xgl

log out & in again & run

compiz --replace

Is it still producing the same errors?

[mrq201]

OK,,, i tried the sudo apt-get install xserver-xgl and i got this response

[sudo] password for mgabriel:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package xserver-xgl
mgabriel@mgabriel-desktop:~$

this is what im getting when i type compiz

mgabriel@mgabriel-desktop:~$ compiz
Checking for Xgl: not present.
Detected PCI ID for VGA: 00:02.0 0300: 8086:2562 (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Checking for texture_from_pixmap: not present.
Trying again with indirect rendering:
Checking for texture_from_pixmap: present.
Checking for non power of two support: present.
Checking for Composite extension: present.
Comparing resolution (1680x1050) to maximum 3D texture size (2048): Passed.
Checking for nVidia: not present.
Checking for FBConfig: present.
Checking for Xgl: not present.
GConf backend: There is an unsupported value at path /apps/compiz/plugins/scale/allscreens/options/initiate_edge. Settings from this path won't be read. Try to remove that value so that operation can continue properly.

[chamber]

It does look to be that the system can't handle compiz properly.

Have you tried installing all the restricted drivers for your graphics card?

Don't really know what else to do at the minute.

[mrq201]

how do i install the restricted drivers

[chamber]

Administration > Restricted Drivers Manager, then see if there are any to install.

What graphics card do you have again?