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I have a new Lenovo ThinkPad E540. I have successfully installed Ubuntu 12.04 after the installation I receive the 'remove all ... and press any key to restart'. No I receive the selection menu (note that I erased the entire disk and now only Ubuntu is installed!!), but after I clicked on Ubuntu I got black screen with a blinking white underline character in the left top corner.

I read about disabling the UEFI mode in the BIOS, which I did, but I still got the same result.

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I reinstalled everything again. After choosing Ubuntu in the GRUB menu the display stays black but I get to the login screen -> noticed by the sound of the drums!! The graphic card is a NVIDIA GeForce GT 740M.

Error before the login screen: enter image description here

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wasp256
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  • after changing uefi to legacy,turning off secure boot ran boot-repair. – Avinash Raj Dec 31 '13 at 14:11
  • where do I have to run the 'boot-repair'? – wasp256 Dec 31 '13 at 14:15
  • try the second option in this https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair – Avinash Raj Dec 31 '13 at 14:17
  • Ok I've run the boot-repair (Recommended repair) and it ended successfully, but I still get the black screen with the white stripe after choosing Ubuntu from the GRUB menu... – wasp256 Dec 31 '13 at 14:29
  • post the boot-repair log in pastebin.com and then provide the link here. – Avinash Raj Dec 31 '13 at 14:30
  • I've tried to reinstall Ubuntu but that didn't work either so here is the log from boot-repair: http://paste.ubuntu.com/6673566/ – wasp256 Jan 01 '14 at 15:32
  • what was shown after reboot? – Avinash Raj Jan 01 '14 at 15:34
  • the menu where I can choose between 'Ubuntu with Linux...', 'Ubuntu, with Linux...(recovery mode)', 'memory test...'; if I choose the first one the black screen comes with the blinking white stripe – wasp256 Jan 01 '14 at 15:59
  • try this http://askubuntu.com/questions/162075/my-computer-boots-to-a-black-screen-what-options-do-i-have-to-fix-it – Avinash Raj Jan 01 '14 at 16:00
  • I've tried the method 'Black/purple screen after you boot Ubuntu for the first time', after pressing Ctrl+x I receive the boot output info but after a few seconds it stops and does not continue, added the screenshot of where it stops to my post – wasp256 Jan 01 '14 at 16:18
  • Is the booting is going on from Hard Disk or USB? May be computer is finding flash drive to boot but it's not there and you've to set it to boot from HD. -a throw answer. – rainlover Jan 01 '14 at 17:10
  • It's the hard disk where Ubuntu is installed, there is no USB connected – wasp256 Jan 01 '14 at 17:36
  • Probably already did this, but is the MD5 of the file good? Does it match up to the official one? Sometimes the download gets hiccuped, messing up just enough that it is still seen as "good" but messes up on something like this. – RPiAwesomeness Jan 02 '14 at 19:31
  • Can you get into a TTY? Ctrl+Alt+F1? – RPiAwesomeness Jan 02 '14 at 19:33
  • @RPI Yes and I've already tried differnet versions of Ubuntu 13.10, 11.10 etc. but with those I get the previous problem with the black screen and white stripe now I get at least to the login screen even if I can't see anything... – wasp256 Jan 02 '14 at 19:34
  • @RPI no 'Ctrl+Alt+F1' doesn't work...but now I get an error which is actually displayed before the black login screen (picture updated) – wasp256 Jan 02 '14 at 19:45
  • @falconer I did but unfortunately no difference – wasp256 Jan 02 '14 at 19:59
  • syslog: http://pastebin.com/6uuKKwdj; Xorg.0.log: http://pastebin.com/gLKdg2hc and lightdm.log: http://pastebin.com/WBQjgChT – wasp256 Jan 02 '14 at 20:39
  • @wasp256 I think those logs are the logs of the live session. (I guess it because of the ubuntu user, am I wrong?) You have to first mount the harddrive on which you installed ubuntu, and then go to that directory where you mounted it, and get the logs from there. (So the path won't be /var/log/syslog, but something like /mnt/XXXX/var/log/syslog.) – falconer Jan 02 '14 at 20:48
  • @falconer yes your right sorry here the right logs, syslog: http://pastebin.com/zDtuHeuK, Xorg: http://pastebin.com/2W8UFxcj, lightdm: http://pastebin.com/t0UjaVj0 – wasp256 Jan 02 '14 at 21:02
  • @wasp256 I added my clues to my answer, hope one of them helps. Please also put these logs into you main question, so other users can easily find it and it is easier for them to help. – falconer Jan 02 '14 at 21:45
  • Please consider moving this to chat. – RolandiXor Jan 03 '14 at 06:01

2 Answers2

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If you hear the login sound, but can't see anything, then it is likely that your backlight didn't turn on (or turned off). Try booting with the following kernel parameters:

thinkpad-acpi.brightness_enable=1 acpi_backlight=vendor

To add those parameters: While GRUB is shown press e on the Ubuntu menu entry in grub2, this will take you to edit mode and add the following option to the kernel line (add it to the end of the line which starts with "linux")

thinkpad-acpi.brightness_enable=1 acpi_backlight=vendor

Then press CTRL+x to boot with the edited kernel command line.

After you succeed with the boot just edit your /etc/default/grub file and add the working kernel line parameter to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT= line. After you edited the file run

sudo update-grub

to save the kernel line for later boots.

After looking at the logs I would advise you to try these:

  • Go into your BIOS and change you graphics to only use the integrated intel VGA card. Looking at the Lenovo user guide you can do this at the Config->Display->Graphics Device option, change that to Integrated Graphics. (You may also need to change Config->Display->OS Detection for switchable graphics to Disabled) In the live session the intel card was used, and you had no problems, but the installed ubuntu is trying to use the proprietary nvidia driver.
  • You may try booting with the nomodeset kernel parameter which usually solves problems with the nvidia driver. (But I don't know how nomodeset behaves with switchable graphics)
  • For me your logs doesn't show anything failing (but the constant (II) modesetting(G0): Modeline "1920x1080"x0.0 151.60 1920 2010 2070 2220 1080 1086 1095 1138 -hsync -vsync (68.3 kHz eP) might mean that there is a problem, I don't know this.), so I still think that this might be only a problem with the backlight not turning on. So you may try increasing the backlight with the backlight combos on your keyboard.

After you manage to solve this booting problem, then you can try searching for a solution on how to enable bumblebee or prismus to utilize both of your cards without failures.

falconer
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  • I added the parameters but it didn't work – wasp256 Jan 02 '14 at 19:58
  • The first solution worked just fine -> change to integrated graphics!!, thanks a lot enjoying Ubuntu now :) – wasp256 Jan 06 '14 at 11:46
  • @wasp256 I'm glad it helped. Don't forget that now your laptop only uses the intel VGA which means much better battery life but possibly worse performance. If you aren't satisfied with the performance of the intel card you will have to look up how to setup bumblebee on Ubuntu. If you don't need that extra performance from the nvidia card (as it is likely only needed for some graphic intensive games) then it is best to stick with your current setup. – falconer Jan 06 '14 at 11:54
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Did you install it alongside with Windows?

My recommendation:

  1. Please install it again. (with or without Windows. It's your decision)
  2. Install only using bootable CD/DVD (no flash drive)

Try & report. Thanks!

Draganz
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  • No Ubuntu is the only OS I've installed. I've tried to install it again (with USB) but nothing changed. Why can't I use a USB to install it, the installed did finish correctly, the booting after is the problem!? – wasp256 Jan 01 '14 at 15:34