Stephen Pelc wrote:
> Sean's Shuttle is rehomed here!
>
> After much cursing and downloading of drivers from the Shuttle
> site, XP64 is installed and working fine.
>
What would a Windows install be without the cursing and rebooting, eh?
> The video card appears to be a Radeon X800.
>
A Sapphire X800XL to be exact.
> Downloaded the Ubuntu 64 image to CD, and played the dumb user.
> Installation looked perfect until ... It will only boot when F4
> is set to 1024*768*16 or some such - the monitor's a really old
> 17" CRT. The live boot from CD then works fine, e.g. Firefox
> connects to Google.
>
> But then I told it to install to the spare space on the disc,
> all went well until ...
>
> 1) It did nothing at the reboot when it told me to remove the CD
> and press enter.
> 2) When finally reset using the magic reset button, the generic
> Ubuntu says it's booting, turns off the monitor, and flashes the
> caps lock and scroll lock buttons.
>
> A kernel panic it seems. What next? The recovery console works,
> but then it's not for dumb users.
Which image did you go for Stephen? AMD 64 6.06 or 7.04? And which
installation method? Is it still the case that there is a Live Boot, a
graphical and a text-based install?
When I stuck a 64-bit Ubuntu on there originally it was either Hoary or
Breezy - I forget which now. Either way, I think it probably indicates
that your problems are not insurmountable, since the hardware was all
brand new, as was the 64-bit OS, and the graphics were fine even in that
older, somewhat experimental release.
Interestingly enough when I put 32-bit Edgy recently on there I had to
go for a text-based install on account of the graphic and Live Boot
installs not playing nice with the graphics card and/or monitor. A
dist-upgrade to Feisty went as smooth as you like too - no hitches at
all - but then we are still talking 32-bit there.
Can you see any X-related logs in /var/log?
What driver has the installation used in /etc/X11/xorg.conf? Is it the
'ati' driver? Can you get any further with the 'vesa' driver. I seem to
recall that being what I used in my 64-bit foray in the absence of a
working (proper) ATI driver.
It may well be worth looking at the wiki and the forums for advice on
installing the 64-bit versions with that particular card. If you go to
the forums and search for 'x800xl + 64-bit' there's a fair few entries.
When you get to a point where you can install packages and make config
changes then this might be of help:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/ATI
There's some proprietary driver stuff going on there so look away if
that's not your thing!
Good luck!
Sean
