Ubuntu Karmic 9.10 and Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P – Black screen

By November 24, 2009Hackintosh

After any install of Karmic, 9.10 the new GRUB 2 bootloader will not start the generic kernel. On first reboot after a fresh install, when you select the standard boot image you are left with a black screen, and possibly a blinking cursor in the upper left hand corner.  To boot anything functional I was forced to start in rescue mode, resume normal boot, login as my user, then run [cci]startx[/cci] to start GNOME. What a disaster! Simple fix? You got it!

It’s time to edit Grub2, a daunty little beast that is not to be mistaken for Grub.

1. Open the grub config

[raw]sudo gedit /etc/default/grub[/raw]

2. A note : grub.cfg cannot be modified without changing the file permissions first. Do not modify [cci]/boot/grub/grub.cfg[/cci] Simply put, every time you run update-grub this file is re-generated. Changes here can be dangerous.

3. Find the following, or similar depending on your kernel

[raw]linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic root=UUID=94db3b6d-1959-49d3-8565-6e3e28acdc64 ro quiet splash[/raw]

4. Remove “quiet splash”

[raw]linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic root=UUID=94db3b6d-1959-49d3-8565-6e3e28acdc64 ro[/raw]

5. Run

[raw]sudo update-grub[/raw]

6. Reboot

2 Comments

  • desperado says:

    Hi, thanks for the solution, it seems to be useful
    But i wonder, how to start in rescue mode?

  • admin says:

    You can also do this on boot. When you get to the point of needing to select a kernel, hit “e” on your keyboard, edit out the “quiet splash” from the boot string, and hit CTRL-X to boot. This however will not make a permanent change to GRUB, for that…see instructions above 🙂

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