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Asked: 2011-05-18 01:59:42 +0800 CST

How do I get my blacked out ttys back?

  • 772

Original Question:

After I replaced my Ubuntu 10.10 with 11.04 all I get when I Ctrl+Alt+F1–F6 into a tty is a black screen. Also when I boot there's a while of black screen after grub2 menu is displayed. Then until just before gnome starts it stays black.

I have an Nvida Geforce Quadro FX 770M on my HP EliteBook 8530w. How do I get my ttys (aka 'virtual terminals') to work again?

My efforts in chronological order:

  • So grub and gfx-payload seems to be the problem, I figured. I went along with this guide for higher tty resolution. Which led to the grub2 menu displaying in my native resolution rather than 800x600. The black screen problem remains.

  • I googlehit some bugreports on other nvidia cards having that problem.

  • I tried uninstalling the nvidia driver. No effect. Also tried different resolutions

  • With an older version of the kernel it works. Though not perfectly. The ttys are usable, black screen between grub2 menu and gnome start remains. Not really a solution.

  • Tried so much, that I lost track. Reinstalled grub2 and linux-image-2.6.38-8-generic. Then did this to my /etc/default/grub in accordance with the aforementioned guide (/etc/grub.d/00_header edited as well):

    GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
GRUB_TIMEOUT=3
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
#GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""
GRUB_GFXMODE=1680x1050x32

    To my surprise I can now use my ttys in native resolution. Black screen between grub2 menu and gnome login screen is still there though. That is annoying since I also use an encrypted disk thus having to enter my passphrase in total dark... Still looking for a solution but urgency is low.

  • Downloaded and installed a later version of nvidia driver. No difference to last edit.

  • Tried GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="vga="-parameter. No effect.

  • nomodeset has no effect. not even in combination with vga=...

  • Tried echo FRAMEBUFFER=y > /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/splash no effect (see comment)

  • On the verge of resignation...

  • Bounty period soon to end.

11.04

6 Answers

  1. I experienced the same problem as you when I replaced Ubuntu 10.10 by a fresh install of Ubuntu 11.04 (and later on, Ubuntu 11.10): my "console" tty's were desperately blanks but actually working -- i.e. I could log in and enter commands that actually work, but there was nothing visible on my screen.

    I spent a huge number of hours on Google and various Ubuntu forums, I tried plenty of suggestions and I finally came to the following conclusion: the problem is linked to the proprietary NVIDIA driver -- if I remove the proprietary NVIDIA driver and use the "nouveau" driver, the problem disappears but then of course I can't benefit from the hardware acceleration any more.

    I managed to fix the problem on my system (ZOTAC ZBOX with on-board NVIDIA GT218) by using the Uvesafb framebuffer driver.

    Here is the procedure I used:

    apt-get install v86d
apt-get install hwinfo
hwinfo --framebuffer

    From hwinfo's output, I picked up the "best" resolution compatible with my screen -- in my case 1280x800 24-bit -- and I added the following line at the end of /etc/initramfs-tools/modules file:

    uvesafb mode_option=1280x800-24 mtrr=3 scroll=ywrap

    (The string "1280x800-24" comes from the resolution I chose -- your mileage may vary.)

    Then I rebuilt grub and initramfs images as follows:

    update-initramfs -u
update-grub

    Finally I rebooted the system and my console tty's were finally visible again.

    I don't use encrypted filesystem, so I cannot check whether or not the passphrase is to be entered "in the dark", but anyway I hope the above workaround will help you.

    • 8

  2. I encountered the same problem, all ttyX terminals running (getty proccesses running), but no loggin prompt on either Ctrl+Alt+F1-6 (black screen with rest of splash picture on top). When I type in logname and password user is properly logged (who command). Only solution I found is to switch to text mode while boot proceeds.

    1) edit: /etc/default/grub GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=text

    2) and update of grub: update-grub2 update-initramfs -u

    • 3

  3. Similar problem

    I found out that it had to do with the VGA on my motherboard which I wasn't using. When I connected a monitor to the mobo VGA and hit CTRL-ALT-F1 the tty displayed on that monitor instead.

    Went to BIOS- set the vga to enable when there is no graphics card - everything's fine now.

    Pity I reinstalled and formated everything before I got to this stage :(

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  5. Mine fades to black slowly, like some kind of security feature, If I login, and I gotta type my login name perfectly, press enter, then enter my password, enter. I can see stuff just fine. Maybe your screen is fading to black very quickly.

    Try loging in. I don't think this is related to a graphics card, since I have had this with 11.04 and 11.10, and maybe the version before. On two cards, NVIDIA and ATI. (with fancy-super-secret-non-open source drivers)

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  6. I started experiencing this problem after making the required changes for wireless to connect even before user login to the desktop environment .

    I followed the instructions provided at this page for achieving the same.

    After these changes my sessions were not at the correct runlevel. I was able to get the tty console back by reverting the changes made in /etc/init/rc-sysinit.conf.

    Now my tty consoles are working fine and the issue was not related to grub or display drivers.

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