Ubuntu 8.1 install problems

[diogenese]

I've just installed ubuntu 8.1 into an old dell celeron box. I got through the install fine but on it's first boot off the drive I could log in but then I got a black screen with a mouse cursor on it and nothing else.
I tried another install with the same result
Completely new to linux but I thought I should try it, now I am already lost and I haven't even started yet

 

[BillytheImpaler]

You might have some funky hardware there that's mucking things up.

When you boot choose the failsafe option, get to a root terminal, and type startx

If it fails you can see the errors that it spits out. You might also want to change the line in the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf where it says driver=something.

type
nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf
scroll down to the line in question
change what it says after the = to vesa
ctrl o
ctrl x
then reboot and see if it makes a difference.

If you can't get it to work at all it's certainly worth trying another distro to see if it does better for you. Fedora 10 just came out and OpenSuSE is still quite nice.

 

[diogenese]

I just read the post about Mint and it looked like just what I need for this box so I tried it and lo and behold it worked perfectly Odd as it is mostly the same underneasth
Good job really as there are no removable parts in this POS dell!

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Enjoy!

 

[Ross1234]

Huzzah! Linux mint is brilliant.