6970M Issues Ubuntu FIX

I had a lot of issues trying to install Ubuntu on an Alienware and my own brand with 6970M's, and I figured out the steps to do it.

When the boot screen comes up and you're given the option to try ubuntu from the disk or to install it, press CTRL-ALT-F1 all at the same time, press F6, and select nomodeset. You should now be able to install or run the OS without issues. However this is a temporary solution, you'll have to do some editing of grub files to make it permanent.

The solution I found came from [ubuntu] NOMODESET - making it permanent - Ubuntu Forums

Basically, you point your terminal to /etc/default/grub and nano or vi the grub file and change GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset". Then simply type update-grub and enter in your terminal to update the boot loader, and you're done! No more fretting in menus to run your distro.

This fix should work with Suse, Debian, Ubuntu, etc. Hope this helps!

 

Adding "nomodeset" to your kernel boot parameter should work as well - in grub legacy it is quite simple (add it to menu.lst)... I'm not much a fan of grub2 and its fancy configuration process - but I think it should be doable there too You could also interrupt the bootloader by pressing the e key (may be some other key with grub2 ?) and you can edit the boot commands thereby appending "nomodeset"

This is the case not only for ATI but nvidia drivers as well....

Basically Kernel Mode Setting (KMS) has been part of the linux kernel tree since 2.6.29 - which added support for graphics cards bringup (setting bit depth, resolution, etc.) right in the kernel instead of the Xorg driver and so you should have access to fancy 2D graphics support even before the X comes up (yes that is right on the console)....

But the problem is that - with KMS enabled, the proprietary drivers from nvidia, amd wont work. It would work only with the open source drivers (which are not that good in performance compared to the proprietary)..

So to disable it - you can either pass a boot parameter to the kernel or add it your /etc/sysconfig, rebuilt initrd.

You might also need to blacklist the opensource drivers (or remove them) in /etc/modprobe.d/ just in case that it doesnt conflict with your proprietary driver.

BTW it should work for all distros.

 

@TuxDude grub2 uses /etc/default/grub for the user configuration file, so that's all you'd have to edit.

@Z-Evolution it's nice to see someone posting solutions here! +rep

 

Shouldn't you also run update-grub script (or the grub-mkconfig) to update the /boot/grub/grub.cfg used by GRUB2 ?

 

Thanks for the rep! It took me a while to figure out the solution and I figured other people might have needed help with this.

 

That's correct, I forgot to mention that, thanks for the catch, I'll edit the main post.

 

I have not been able to have my notebook working correctly since I have it (one year)

I have a compal P150HM with amd 6970m

if I use standard drivers provided by Ubuntu/Kubuntu/debian I have the PC working ONLY in 2d with FAN always ON...

With 11.10 (ubuntu or kubuntu) I am not able to install fglrx drivers...
If I use Jockey the drivers installed crashes my system after 5 minutes...

I have never been able to use drivers provided by AMD (from their website) ...

As far as I understand with NOMODESET we should be able to use fglrx BUT only in 2d right?

There will be one day when this GPU Will work correctly under linux?