HOWTO : Fix blank screen on Ubuntu 10.04

You may experienced blank screen when bootup a Live CD of Ubuntu 10.04 if you have legacy display card no matter it is an Intel, nVidia, ATi or others. You can fix it by adding a Kernel parameter.

The Kernel parameter for different display cards is :

Intel display card - i915.modeset=1
nVidia display card - nomodeset
Generic - xforcevesa

Boot up - Live CD

Step 1 :
Bootup and press any key at the screen of a little keyboard and a human with a circle at the bottom of the screen.

Step 2 :
Press F6 and then Esc.

Step 3 :
Append one of the above Kernel parameter at the end of the command line.

Step 4 :
Select try out Ubuntu (i.e. the first option of the boot menu).

Boot up - after installation

You may also encounter blank screen after installation with the above method.

Step a :
Bootup with Live CD and follows the Step (1) to (4) as above mentioned.

Step b :
After bootup, mount the hard drive at the "Place".

Step c :
Open a terminal and issue the following command -

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

Step d :
Locate the following line and append the Kernel parameter and make the output looking like as the following if you have an Intel display card -

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash i915.modeset=1"

OR

Step d(1) : (Optional)

sudo nano /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Locate the "linux" tag and add the parameter at the end of "quiet splash". Then jump to Step f.

Step e :
Save and exit. Then issue the following command -

sudo update-grub

Step f :
Then reboot the system without Live CD.

If Step a to f does not work, just do Step a, b, d(1) and then jump to Step f.

That's all! See you.