Hi all, I was having trouble installing Mythubuntu 12.04 on an old PC I had lying around.
Mythubuntu is based on Ubuntu 12.04 so if you’re struggling with the ATI Radeon 9200 on there these steps should help.

(Since I have a Hauppuage Nova-T 500 dual freeview pci card from old projects, and a 2tb drive from new ones, I wanted to see about recording some films!)

Basically, when booting it would come up with a garbled, black or blank screen.

If this happens during the livecd boot, preventing you from installing, when you see the logo:

Hit enter, and F6 for other options, select nomodeset, hit enter to enable then Escape and enter to boot.
If operating from a laptop, you might want to try noapic too.

 

In the latest grub setup – grub 2 – the boot menu is hidden, making it near impossible to access.
Might make it look pretty but is major frustrating for troubleshooting!
The script /boot/grub/grub.cfg it uses is supposed to boot in textmode if it has failed to boot, but this does not work.

The fix:

Note: you can login, type

sudo su

and then skip typing sudo with every command below (it gets quite annoying I know!)

1. To access the grub bootmenu, hold down shift – after all your pc’s bios and add-on cards bios screens have disappeared and until it pops up – it takes a while to appear!
2. To access the console – textmode, insert the word text and remove ‘splash quiet’ from the kernel options,
   also insert the word nomodeset
   then press F10 or Ctrl-C to boot with the new settings.
3. Connect to the internet, if using Wired connection you may need to connect (hopefully you connected ok during the install)
   

   sudo nmcli -p con up id “Wired connection 1”

   If that doesn’t work check your wireless connections names with and edit the above command appropriately

   nmcli con

4. Install xserver-xorg-video-ati
   

   sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-ati

   (don’t freak out when you see ‘Removing Mythubuntu-desktop’ it seems to come right in the end.

5. Create a new link for the X server
   (Not sure why this breaks after the upgrade but it won’t work without this step!!)

   sudo ln /usr/bin/Xorg /usr/bin/X

6. Edit the default bootmenu script
   Add nomodeset to the default grub bootmenu

   sudo nano /etc/default/grub.cfg

   Change this line near the top:

   GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash”
   to
   GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”nomodeset”
   #”quiet splash”

   The # tells it to ignore this bit, it’s a backup so that we can make it quiet again later. You’ll notice text streaming by as the system boots instead of the cute (Myth) Ubuntu …. logo

   Ctrl-X to exit, type s and Return to save

7. Update grub
   

   sudo update-grub

8. Reboot and Revel in the shinyness
   

   sudo reboot

I actually ran this command to to start the windows manager, (and I haven’t tried rebooting yet, shhh)

sudo start lightdm

If you have any extra trouble, comment below, check the ubuntu forums and google.
I managed to work this out on my own as I couldn’t find the answer!

 

I also created a script to set the resolution of lightdm at boot, following the guide here:
LightDM Resolution

This did not work as when I started lightdm, the resolution was set higher than I’d set in lightdm, so I don’t think this was part of the fix.
Thankfully it was within my monitors capabilities. I think I set the output name wrong.
I need to figure out the display outputs are available but couldn’t query it from the command line without x running, which seems kinda silly.

Hope this has been helpful!