2012-10-20

Ubuntu 12.10 fix for boot blank screen with [OK] and mouse cursor

I decided to do a fresh install of Ubuntu 12.10 given I had done so much experimental tweaking with 12.04; figured it was good idea to start over. The installation went super smooth (better than past versions I can recall, and I've been using Ubuntu as my primary OS since Breezy Badger); the first boot however didn't go so well.

Here's the steps I witnessed: the BIOS steps clear just fine, GRUB loads up and defaults into Ubuntu after a countdown (I dual boot), the Ubuntu progress meter behaves normally, then it transitions to a black screen with a residual [OK] at the top of the screen (something left over from the splash and quiet boot message suppression) AND a functioning mouse cursor. Really odd IMO. I'm pretty sure the OS is functioning just fine at this point, but something isn't graphically working correctly.

Here's the fix I tried with success:

  1. While at the blank screen with the mouse cursor, hit Ctrl+Alt+F1. This should bring up a terminal.
  2. Log in with the credentials you set at install
  3. Type: sudo apt-get update
  4. Type: sudo apt-get upgrade (given this few of days since the release, I saw a few updates for Compiz)
  5. Reboot. Type: sudo shutdown -r now
  6. Problem should be fixed
I suspect it had something to do with LightDM and Compiz not behaving correctly, and the Compiz updates fixed the problem. Good luck!

4 comments:

  1. Thank you for this it worked perfectly for me as well!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Victor, I'm glad I wasn't alone! Thanks for the feedback.

    ReplyDelete
  3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=402YWC2LkjA

    /etc/init/lightdm.conf

    put "sleep 4" above the "exec lightdm" line

    ReplyDelete