"Out of Range"?

Trying to put just a toe in the water with Linux.

Burned a Live CD of Ubuntu, rebooted my machine.

The initial menu gave me the option to check the integrity of the CD, and the CD was fine.

When I selected the option to preview Ubuntu without changing my machine, I could see the Ubuntu logo, I could see the orange bar going across the screen, I heard the bootup music--

then I got a blank screen and an "OUT OF RANGE" message across the screen (blue box in center of black screen). This is apparently some message driven by the display settings being out of range of what my monitor can handle.

Huh? My monitor/graphics driver are not particularly obscure or antiquated. How can I change this in the boot sequence? Is this even the right question? :confused

Solutions?

 

Yes drivers for different hardware can be difficult to find/install.
Ubuntu has a huge community support
http://ubuntuforums.org/

Or you may just want to try another distribution/live cd as ther support for hardware can vary greatly
A few other distros that are easy are

Mandriva One Live cd ( I have not found too many systems that would not boot this one no matter how old)

PC Linux OS Live cd/install A offshoot of Mandriva-- aimed at the average windows user.

and here is a list of alot more

http://distrowatch.com/
http://www.livecdlist.com/

 

I have been looking at Mandriva and may try that next.

The next question will betray my fundamental ignorance of things computer-related.

If I install a driver that Linux needs for my monitor, will this interfere with my ability to run Windows? I'm not prepared to make a commitment to Linux yet for my home machine.

 

What kind of hardware are you attempting on.

What kind of video card do you have. ATI or NVIDIA

Do you have shared or onboard video memory?

Yes, you can change the parameters at boot to be low graphics in live. If you could see a colored background, then you may have had files that did not clear out of RAM. (a known bug on lauchpad) Turn the computer completely off and wait a few minutes then boot with the LIVE cd.

 

Ubuntu is based on Debian, and Mandriva and PC Linux OS are RedHat/Fedora based. Either has strengths, and weakness.

 

no - i dual boot mandriva and w2k, windows hasn't a clue that mandriva is there (apart from 1 hdd with 3 extra partitions in my disk management - they are showing as unformated),
anything i change with one - does not effect the other

 

A rapidly aging eMachines T3958 with the standard (for it) Intel 845VG chipset. The drivers for the video stuff are manufacturer-proprietary to Gateway/eMachines, or so Intel says when I look at their driver site. I have the latest drivers I can find from eMachines for the system.

No video card if I am understanding your question correctly. Integrated video.

Gah. Not sure I understand the question. Perhaps the answer is here where I confirm that I don't have an AGP slot in my machine. rolleyes I think it's "onboard" based on the fact that it the video is integrated into the chipset, but you will know if I am confusing the two concepts.

Man, I wish this had been the fix. Unfortunately, it was not. Got the same message.

To be clearer than my first post, I never saw the pale orange screen that fills the whole screen when Ubuntu finishes booting up (I tried the Live CD on my Vista machine (Lenovo T61 Thinkpad), and it works like a champ, however that's my machine for work and I don't want to experiment on it just yet). What I was able to see on my eMachine was: the initial request for me to select a language, the Ubuntu logo against a black screen, the orange bar going back and forth against a black screen, an initial series of DOS-like commands with things like <F1> Memory Check, the orange bar filling up from left to right, then a black screen as a little music plays and *then* the "OUT OF RANGE" message in the center of the black screen.

Grateful for any education,

FJM

 

Update: Burned a DVD with Mandriva One at work today, brought it home and BOOM!

Not only did it load OK with no "out of range" messages from my video setup, Mandriva "recognized" Firefox (I suppose I shouldn't be surprised) and here I am on the Internet feeling very pleased with myself.

Boy that was easy! Now what, I wonder? ;-)

FJM
Geek-in-training

 

welcome to the world of linux (mandriva:-D:drool)

 

Cool, you solved it and you have it running!

Yay! :-D

Now what- Get Amarok for KDE or Exaile for Gnome of course!

 

:cool

Haha. I am taking this step-by-step, but I did manage to carve out a nice 45GB partition on my WinXP machine with QTParted (with fear and trembling throughout) and so the next step appears to be the install into the unallocated partition (which doesn't seem to have a drive letter yet. I wonder if it ever acquires one :confused).

Now to google Amarok and Exaile.

FJM

 

PS: Oh, for Heaven's sake!

It can't be that easy.

I now have a dual boot system.

 

you may find this of use,

http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/

if you added your media packages when you installed mandriva then there is no need to use the 'add official medias' button

but you will need the PLF medias (Penguin Liberation Front), these are packages that are not officialy supported by mandriva due to various regional laws,
but you will need some for certain applications,

eg - win32 codecs for watching video files, vlc media player, etc