Linux noob. Screen nearly black after install with wubi

[redrhd_eg6]

Hey guys so i just installed ubuntu 11.04 onto my laptop. After a reebot and selecting ubuntu,i hear the noises that it is loading but i can barely see the screen at all. I have to really try and squint to make out what is going. I can tell that it has completely loaded and is booting as i can barely make out the "taskbar" at the bottom. I have read a few suggestions to try and fix this but they involve the terminal which i cannot find because the screen is too dark. Is there a way that i can do this right after the bios get loaded? that is where i am at in my reading but im kind of lost and would appreciate the help. The laptop is a cheapy with a pentium processor and integrated graphics. Thank you.

[thideras]

It almost sounds as if the brightness is turned down. What happens when you try to use the buttons on the laptop to increase the brightness?

It may also help to do in a dark room so you can see what it is doing.

[redrhd_eg6]

I did that and i can see a small box with a slider for the brightness. I turned it up as high as it would go and nothing. Thats exactly what i thought and i got in my closet but its even worse in the dark. It has to be bright in order for me to see anything. I hooked up a monitor to the vga on my laptop, but not sure what coding i would do in order to fix this.

[thideras]

You could try to boot with the external monitor plugged in to see what happens. I know that the distro I use will automatically enable and use an external monitor when I plug it into my laptop.

I'm not familiar with Ubuntu/WUBI, as I have not used it.

[BudTheChud]

:-/ Well you're logging in ok that means the log in screen and splash seem to be visible...otherwise I'd suggest tuning the screen like thideras said because really it sounds to me like your screen contrast was somehow set really low...hmmm, I cannot think of anything that would do this. I'm running Natty aswell, I'll mess around with settings to see if I can replicate your situation and possibly come up with a solution.

[redrhd_eg6]

i tried uninstalling and installing with the high contrast accessibility mode, however it did nothing:bang head. Perhaps i will try installing an earlier version, maybe 10.04 and see if there is a difference there.

[Shelnutt2]

What graphics card does your laptop have?

[redrhd_eg6]

its and intergrated intel card. To be honest with you i dont know of the top of my head i would have to look at it when i get home. I have read there are problems with nvidia but im not sure if there are issues with integrated intel as well.

[Shelnutt2]

its and intergrated intel card. To be honest with you i dont know of the top of my head i would have to look at it when i get home. I have read there are problems with nvidia but im not sure if there are issues with integrated intel as well.

Nah Intel is good. One of the best open source drivers. Nvidia proprietary drivers are also the best. But opensource stink. ATI is hit and miss, but getting better, Sometimes ATI is great, other times it stinks. ATI open source drivers are coming along though.

I saw you had integrated, but I just wanted to make sure it was intel and not SIS or anything else. One think you might try is booting using the VESA drivers, which just uses your cpu and no gpu. This will eliminate any bugs in the intel driver and help us narrow this down.

I'm not sure if this is 100% right but should be, when you get to the option to select to boot ubuntu or windows, arrow to ubuntu and press "e" (for edit).

On the line that starts with "linux ..." add the following to the end:
i915.modeset=0 xforcevesa

[redrhd_eg6]

So hookign up external monitor i can see everything and boot fine. i have tried playing with the setting to no avail. I tried entering the information you posted in grub and nothing. I tried making =1 as suggested on another site, nothing. I have completely deleted the Quiet splash line and nothing. am i supposed to be saving those edits in any way or am i just supposed to be booting from the edit screen. i am lost on this one. And yes the graphics are intel integrated (mobile chipset 4 i belive)

[TollhouseFrank]

so you installed with Wubi. Great news as this gives us an avenue of troubleshooting. I haven't seen it mentioned or asked here: What happens when you reboot back into Windows? Does the same thing still happen?

[rainless]

What laptop do you have EXACTLY?

Is it the Acer Aspire One?

[redrhd_eg6]

Yeah i used wubi with the intent of dual booting. I have used this both my desktops and it has worked fine. When booting in windows everything is fine, so it is not an issue with the monitor. The laptop is an eMachines E725, It has an intel T4400 processor with mobil intel 4 series express chipset rev. 9 with intel graphics media accelerator 4500m.

[rainless]

Yeah i used wubi with the intent of dual booting. I have used this both my desktops and it has worked fine. When booting in windows everything is fine, so it is not an issue with the monitor. The laptop is an eMachines E725, It has an intel T4400 processor with mobil intel 4 series express chipset rev. 9 with intel graphics media accelerator 4500m.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's a bios issue masquerading as a software issue. I'd say update the bios and see if it changes anything.

[Enablingwolf]

I seen a few laptops that dim when you do not touch the device after a certain amount of time..

I assume this is the core issue here. Which is a bug in software. This mean it is an OS bug.

For now, I suggest taking a peek at the bug-tracker. See if anything is related to your issue. Not the device, but issue at hand. I seen a few off-hand that are close. (Since it is impossible for me to reproduce on a desktop) I can offer this one option. Then let others or myself help narrow it down. If need be, you file a bug report or something else. Maybe supply other OS options.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bugs?field.searchtext=dim&orderby=-importance&search=Search&field.status%3Alist=NEW&field.status%3Alist=INCOMPLETE_WITH_RESPONSE&field.status%3Alist=INCOMPLETE_WITHOUT_RESPONSE&field.status%3Alist=CONFIRMED&field.status%3Alist=TRIAGED&field.status%3Alist=INPROGRESS&field.status%3Alist=FIXCOMMITTED&field.assignee=&field.bug_reporter=&field.omit_dupes=on&field.has_patch=&field.has_no_package=

It may be a 'back-light' issue to a 'power manage' issue... Once you find the closest issue. It would make it much easier to narrow it down with the bug tracker (linking) and discussion related to it. One tool, to help you describe what your seeing on your end. Just peek around and then link the closest issue your facing.
Looking around the bug-tracker may help you locate the fix even.

[rainless]

I'm still betting bios issue. Power management at that stage of boot is a bios thing. The bios of the laptop is probably anticipating a windows environment and reacts adversely to a linux environment.

It's a longshot I know... but it's the "outside the box" solution. (Which is almost always the right one.)

[redrhd_eg6]

I spent several hours on the ubuntu forums and have discovered that many people are having this issue. After looking at solutions and possible solutions, i decided it was not worth attempting to fix now as i really dont know what im doing. I uninstalled it and actually got 10.04 to see if i would have same problems. After install it runs 100% fine. It must be something in the coding for 11.04, and at this time i dont think there is a clear work around for it. I will continue to check for updates but 10.04 will work for now.

[redrhd_eg6]

as far as the bios, i have not updated those in a bit. I will try that tonight and throw 11.04 on a thumb drive and boot from it and see what happens. Thanks guys for all your help and suggestions.