It often happens that the installer on the Kubuntu Live CD is unable to
correctly identify and configure automatically the X server
configuration for your graphics display chip or card. For the noob,
this means the first thing you see after you run the installation
routine is a jet black screen with (or without) a blinking white "_" in
the upper left corner. The keyboard and mouse are apparently
unresponsive. Here is what to do:
1. Alt-F1 usually takes you to the Command Line Interface (CLI), aka "text prompt" -- sometimes it requires Ctrl-Alt-F1.
2.
At the text prompt, just enter your user name, hit Enter, and then
enter the password that you gave yourself when you went through the
installation routine.
3. Congratulations! You are now logged in
to a marvelous and powerful Linux system, but oops, you're lacking a
GUI interface. We'll fix that now. Enter the following command in a
Konsole window, exactly as shown (if you had a GUI, you could just
"copy" it with your mouse, then in the console window right-click on
the cursor and paste it in):
This starts the X server configuration script. On the first screen,
answer "NO" to the autodetect question (because we already know what
happens when it tries ....), and on the second screen choose "VESA" as
your display type. Then you can accept the defaults until you get to
the "monitor" section. On that screen, put an "x" only in one
resolution that you can comfortably use, like 1024 x 768, or if it is a
small display maybe 800 x 600. Then enter refresh rates appropriate
for your LCD or CRT monitor. When completed, it will dump you back to
the text prompt. At that point you can enter
and you should get a reasonable GUI, in which to continue your excellent adventure.
correctly identify and configure automatically the X server
configuration for your graphics display chip or card. For the noob,
this means the first thing you see after you run the installation
routine is a jet black screen with (or without) a blinking white "_" in
the upper left corner. The keyboard and mouse are apparently
unresponsive. Here is what to do:
1. Alt-F1 usually takes you to the Command Line Interface (CLI), aka "text prompt" -- sometimes it requires Ctrl-Alt-F1.
2.
At the text prompt, just enter your user name, hit Enter, and then
enter the password that you gave yourself when you went through the
installation routine.
3. Congratulations! You are now logged in
to a marvelous and powerful Linux system, but oops, you're lacking a
GUI interface. We'll fix that now. Enter the following command in a
Konsole window, exactly as shown (if you had a GUI, you could just
"copy" it with your mouse, then in the console window right-click on
the cursor and paste it in):
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
This starts the X server configuration script. On the first screen,
answer "NO" to the autodetect question (because we already know what
happens when it tries ....), and on the second screen choose "VESA" as
your display type. Then you can accept the defaults until you get to
the "monitor" section. On that screen, put an "x" only in one
resolution that you can comfortably use, like 1024 x 768, or if it is a
small display maybe 800 x 600. Then enter refresh rates appropriate
for your LCD or CRT monitor. When completed, it will dump you back to
the text prompt. At that point you can enter
startx
and you should get a reasonable GUI, in which to continue your excellent adventure.
