Ubuntu 8.10 - Installed

Couldn't sleep well with this problem nagging my head. A few more attempts later I realized there was something else wrong too. The screen I was getting wasn't all blank, if it had a cursor blinking at the left hand corner. Checked the integrity of the CD, and found one file to be bad. No idea how though. Waited patiently for the download to complete again and this time it was the Alternate CD.

Burned again, installed. It went smooth, and finally I was greeted by the much awaited 800X600 poor resolution screen. Installed the nvidia restricted drivers v177.81 and then on reboot, the evident happened, Black screen of Death. I was almost certain this would happen having read the recurring problem in the forums.

Back to troubleshooting.

Followed some instructions on editing a file called - xorg.conf at /etc/X11. This file contains the parameters to load the display drivers and the monitor - Samsung SyncMaster 226BW. No success. Damn. Tried tons of configurations but to no avail. And just when I am neck deep, grumbling - power goes 'poof'. Sheesh, I cursed loudly and the next two hours were slow, tried reading for the exam a bit. Power was back in couple of hours [no idea why it went in the first place, and if I notice it always does when I am doing something serious].

Browsed a bit more and got the right monitor parameters for the setup. Still no luck.

Opened the Xorg.0.log file and finally figured something was wrong, have a look at this -

(--) NVIDIA(0): Connected display device(s) on GeForce 7900 GS at PCI:1:0:0:
(--) NVIDIA(0): CRT-0
(--) NVIDIA(0): Samsung SyncMaster (CRT-1)
(--) NVIDIA(0): CRT-0: 400.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
(--) NVIDIA(0): Samsung SyncMaster (CRT-1): 400.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
(WW) NVIDIA(0): Option "UseDisplayDevice" requested "DFP", but no unused DFPs
(WW) NVIDIA(0): are available.
(II) NVIDIA(0): Option "UseDisplayDevice" "DFP" converted to "".
(WW) NVIDIA(0): Unable to find any of the requested display device "" in the
(WW) NVIDIA(0): list of available display devices "CRT-0, CRT-1".
(II) NVIDIA(0): Assigned Display Device: CRT-0

The card Nvidia GeForce 7900GS has a dual display out, and evidently my monitor was configured as CRT-1. Obviously using the UseDisplayOption with DFP was not right, since there is no display like DFP. The system was by default assigning CRT-0 as the assigned display device, which did not exist.

(II) NVIDIA(0): Assigned Display Device: CRT-0

I edited my xorg.conf and changed the option line of UseDisplayDevice as

Option "UseDisplayDevice" "CRT-1"

That cracked it and now I am having the most beautiful screen ever. Below is the snippet of the final file xorg.conf if it helps anyone -

Section "Module"
Load "glx"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "SyncMaster"
DisplaySize 474 296
HorizSync 30.0 - 81.0
VertRefresh 60.0
ModeLine "1680x1050" 119.0 1680 1728 1760 1840 1050 1053 1059 1080
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "nvidia"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "Configured Video Device"
Monitor "SyncMaster"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "UseDisplayDevice" "CRT-1"
Option "NoLogo" "True"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1680x1050"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Satiated!!

Apart from the above glitch, to experience this OS is a bliss. I remember 5-6 years back when I had installed RedHat and had the most horrifying experience, finding the most elusive drivers, installing and configuring them, connecting to a network, mounting my Windows NTFS disks etc. Linux has definitely evolved, I did not have do a thing - it was as simple as installing Windows, in fact I was most impressed during the installation boot up screen, when my Wireless USB keyboard and mouse worked flawlessly. Though installation took quite some time roughly about 40 mins, [wonder why it took so long on a Athlon 3000+ powered processor] I was blown away when the screen finally loaded.

I can see Linux evolving to a much higher level, and can picture the desktops around the world booting to THE fabulous system. Windows 7 has to pull off a miracle!