Blank Screen on Booting. Help!!

So you've just installed the driver for your graphics card using all sorts of commands, but still are getting a blank screen. Pretty frustrating! The issue may be with the graphics card not understanding the EDID (Extended Display Identification Data) of your LCD display. EDID is a data structure which includes manufacturer name and serial number, product type, phosphor or filter type, timings supported by the display, display size,luminance data and (for digital displays only) pixel mapping data. (Src: Wikipedia)

Sometimes, the EDID information has to be manually provided to the graphics card from a file. Now where does this file come from? It can easily be generated in the form of a .bin/dat file corresponding to the display using software such as softMCCS (install and run it on Windows). This .bin/dat file must now be copied into one of the linux partitions. This can easily be done using a live CD, or booting into a shell as we did in the previous post. If we are using a shell, first we must mount our windows partition. We can use fdisk to know which partition to mount, and then use the mount command:

fdisk -l

If sda5 is the windows partition to be mounted,

mkdir /mnt/win

mount -t /dev/sda5 /mnt/win

Now, the .bin file can simply be copied (if you have permissions, which you should have if logged in as root) to your linux partition

cp /mnt/win/Documents/XYZ.bin /home/user/Documents

Now we must make sure that the EDID file is used by the graphics card. This is done by modifying the xorg.conf file. This mysterious xorf.conf file stores some of the settings pertaining to graphics. Add the lines shown below in the relevant sections in the xorg.conf file located usually in /etc/X11/

This file is only editable as a super user or root.

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Edit the Device and Screen sections, and add the following lines: 

Section "Device"

Option "CustomEDID" "DFP-0:/home/user/Documents/XYZ.bin"

...

Section "Screen"

Option "UseEDID" "False"

...

Save the xorg.conf file, and after a reboot the blank screen should be gone.
Thanks for reading!
Prashant

nVidia and the Linux kernel : Making them jive!

Happen to have a swanky nVidia graphics card? Frustrated that Linux Live CDs boot to a blank screen? Fear not, with a bit of parameter tweaking and perseverance, all shall be well. Ever since the newer Linux kernels moved the video settings into the kernel, many a user have complained of booting into blank screens. The system BIOS video settings are overridden by the kernel during boot, we need a mechanism to leave them in place. 'nomodeset' does just that!

At the initial screen pictured above, press F6. Navigate to 'nomodeset' and press enter. Now go back by pressing Esc and you can choose to install or boot the live cd as you please!

For other distributions such as Fedora, same can be achieved by adding nomodeset to the kernel parameters before booting, at the GRUB screen.

Press a at the initial screen to modify the kernel parameters, add 'nomodeset' (without the quotes) at the end of the line. Press Esc to go back and boot into the system. After installing, in case of Ubuntu, nVidia drivers can be installed by going to System -> Administration -> Hardware Drivers or Additional Drivers. Alternatively, for any distribution, the drivers can be downloaded from the nVidia website http://www.nvidia.co.in/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-in and installed. This would require re-building the kernel, so make sure you have the source (devel) packages for your kernel. The drivers can only be installed when X servers are not running, i.e. by booting into command line. In Ubuntu, select the recovery mode option during booting to boot into command line.

In Fedora or other distributions, press a in the GRUB menu before booting to edit the kernel parameters, and add '3' (without the quotes) to the parameters list. This runlevel indicates console login.

login as superuser or root, and cd to the directory where the downloaded nvidia drivers reside. Drivers can now be installed by executing the downloaded file:

./NV*.run

The kernel will be rebuilt during installation, and after a reboot, your blank screen woes should be gone!

However, the kernel may still find you unworthy of flawless booting and might still present you with a blank screen - an issue with LCDs, especially on Sony machines. Don't worry, little tuning up of X settings shall get you through. But, that's for another day, and time! It's way past my bedtime, need to hit the sack! :P

Prashant

Sankalan: The Legacy

Sankalan was born in the year 2005, with the aim of being a confluence of technical minds gathering from all over the country. Since its inception, Sankalan has grown bigger and stronger each year, providing students with a platform to showcase their talent, skills and abilities in a plethora of events ranging from coding and technical paper presentation, to turn court and just-a-minute. Students from eminent institutions converge every year to share our dream and vision of making Sankalan a breeding ground where great minds think, plan and create.

Industry bigwigs like Microsoft, Sapient and Aricent have been associated with Sankalan and there have been new partnerships forged each year. Eminent personalities from the industry and academia bless Sankalan with their presence every year, interacting with students, exchanging ideas and participating in seminars. With the 'Open' atmosphere surrounding Sankalan, it has evolved into being not just a technical festival, but a celebration of technology. Two days of intense competition coupled with heaps of fun, and novel exposure provide students with a stage to learn, appreciate and celebrate information technology in its purest of forms.

Sankalan is an eclectic mix of technical and non-technical events. Coding, Web designing, debugging, technical paper presentation, it quiz, etc complete the diaspora of technical events, whereas LAN gaming, turn court and JAM form a gamut of non-technical events. This year, there is a new event in our roster - Electronics. Paying tribute to the digital purity of 1's and 0's, this event will test the ability of students to code 'bare-bones' in 8085 assembly language and design circuits. Nirvana for chip-heads who breathe Computer Science!

'Compiling Innovations' are the two words which describe Sankalan. Talent should be encouraged and innovation applauded. There should be free flow of knowledge and ideas. In line with our open philosophies, the theme at Sankalan this year will be 'Open Source' software. The movement pioneered by Open Source evangelists such as Eric S. Raymond and Richard Stallman has resulted in a creative explosion, aiding not only academia and research with innovative and free software, but also supporting small and large businesses with revolutionary solutions. Be it the Apache web server with two-thirds market share, or the Linux kernel which is seeing increased use in homes and offices and a strong base in research and academic institutions, Open Source software is playing an instrumental role in driving innovation and growth. In doing our bit to encourage FOSS (Free and Open Source Software), we will provide Open Source platforms in all our technical events this year. The Sankalan website is hosted on a LAMP stack (Linux Apache MySql PHP), and Ubuntu will be the platform of choice this year for coding/development events.

With 'Open' hearts, minds and arms, we invite you to Sankalan 2011 to be held on 5th and 6th of March, 2011 at the Convention Centre, University of Delhi (North Campus). Join us as we celebrate Information Technology and Computer Science with the spirit of being 'Open'. Till then, as they say... Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish and Be Open!

Sankalan 2011 web-site : http://cs.du.ac.in/sankalan2011

Hello, World!

Open Source. Open Minds. Open Hearts.

Free software' is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of 'free' as in 'free speech,' not as in 'free beer'.

          -Richard M. Stallman

Image Source: http://blog.cuelogic.co.in/?p=7 

This blog is part of the initiative taken towards imbibing 'Open Source' software and philosophies at Sankalan this year. We'll have news and happenings from the FOSS world, tips and tricks, and initiatives taken by students put up here. 

Now, lets have a little peep at Sankalan!