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Accepted
Jimm Chen
Asked: 2023-10-20 21:45:49 +0800 CST

Install Ubuntu 20.04 with ancient PCI video card, how to make "safe graphics" persistent?

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I have a very old PCI card with Nvidia GeForce 4 MX420 chip(dated back in 2002), using it on a Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3 mainboard(AMD 970A chipset).

I tried to install Ubuntu Linux 20.04 on it, but facing a problem using that video card.

If I boot the Ubuntu installer by its default behavior, on some GUI installer phase, the screen is scrambled, shown below:

Scrambled video output

Later, I find that if I execute the "Install Ubuntu (safe graphics)" menu item, the GUI installer gives normal video output, then I can finish the install phase normally.

"Install Ubuntu (safe graphics)" menu item

So, I think "safe graphics" means using basic VGA driver on my video card. That's OK, totally acceptable.

However, once the formal(installed) Linux boots up, the screen scrambles again, and I think it the installer did NOT relay "safe graphics" trait to the formal Ubuntu instance.

Then, how can I fix that formal Ubuntu instance by telling it to use basic VGA driver all the time?

Thanks in advance.

system-installation

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Edit /etc/default/grub to add nomodeset to this line, for example:

    GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset"

    Then run sudo update-grub and reboot.

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