[Solved]Black screen after install Zorin OS 8 on desktop

Hi there everyone,

Last night i had some difficulty to install Zorin OS 8 on a desktop with 2GHz processor and 2GB Ram.
But first i may tell that i'm dutch speeking guy, so my Englisch is a bit wrong to make myself clear understandable, sorry for that trouble and i'm new to Linux, so i would be very glad if someone could help me with a step by step aprouch.

So back to the install issue
I wasn't able to start the dvd rom with the live version of Zorin OS 8 and had a black screen which i had resolved by pressing the tab key and entering the following command:

Code:

acpi=off nomodeset

By doing that i was able to install Zorin

But now after installing Zorin OS 8 and restart the computer i've get the splash screen that ask what i wanna do.

When i shoose for Zorin to start i've get the blue screen with the pulserend Zorinlogo, but after that the screen went black and stay's that way.

There is nothing i can do.

Hopfully can someone tell me what to do step by step to be able entring the Zorin OS 8

Hi, and Welkom to Zorin!

Try adding these additional commands at boot time to the ones you have already tried:

Code:

xforcevesa acpi=off nolapic nomodeset

Swarfendor437 wrote:Hi, and Welkom to Zorin!

Try adding these additional commands at boot time to the ones you have already tried:

Code:

xforcevesa acpi=off nolapic nomodeset

Thank you so much for your answer.

However i was not able to adding the commands because i was not knowing how to begin with it.
After some surch on the net with my other computer i found some intresting stuff.
So knowing your anser i had a direction where to surch the net for and became this answer that worked perfect for now.

Starting the computer till i have the flash and press a key to prevent the boot goes on automaticaly
On the boot screen i press the E key
so i've got an grub command line
search for the line that begin with Linux and end with the words quiet splash
there i added the word nomodeset (with a space after splash)
and boot with the keys ctrl + x
tada there is my desktop

This is awesome!
I hope that i can now change the drivers voor the nvidia card and boot normaly after that becouse now it is a bit slow.

So thanks for your awesome answer, i will be back here whitin a few ours and tell if it goes all well.

Hi Swarfendor437,

So far so good, i'm able to have a desktop environment to work in by using "nomodeset" in boot command line.
But now i prefer that the computer start in a useable desktop invironment and there it goes totaly wrong...

When i go to "Synaptic Package Manager" > "settings" > "repositories" and klick on "additional drivers"
i have this picture

So i presume that the computer is in need for the Nvidia driver and choose for that driver

But when i klick on "Apply changes" the window goes light grey and stays that way for hours and nothing changed


Is there any solution that may work to accomplisch the change?

OK before messing with the drivers, firstly:

1. Open a terminal in the desktop (Menu | Accessories | Terminal) and enter:

Code:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

and reboot the machine.

2. Download Wolfman's excellent Post-Install Guide:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2054

(I need to update the security section in the .pdf/.doc files!!!)

Hi Swarfendor437,

It seems the troubles keep coming.

I tell what i dit do:

Open the terminal and enter the command:

Code:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

After that i reboot the computer
from then it goes very wrong, i wasn't able to reboot anymore even with the command

Code:

xforcevesa acpi=off nolapic nomodeset

or the command

Code:

nomodeset

so i had to reinstall Zorin OS 8 on the computer also with the command

Code:

acpi=off nomodeset

after installing Zorin OS 8 reboot with the command

Code:

nomodeset

to get into the desktop environment
this time i enter the command in the terminal:

Code:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

and following whith the next command

Code:

sudo apt-get install nvidia-173

and reboot the machine
it still not goes into the desktop environment
i made a small film to show you what happend: http://youtu.be/ixVrqztXA2Q

Hi, firstly, will the machine not run with the default Linux drivers bundled with Zorin?

If you must have nVidia drivers installed - try:

Code:

sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

Hi Swarfendor437,

Code:

Hi, firstly, will the machine not run with the default Linux drivers bundled with Zorin?

When i want to install Zorin OS 8 with the dvd ill end up with no screen at all, so i have to press the tab key and enter the following command:

Code:

acpi=off nomodeset

to get an live desktop environment
after installing Zorin OS 8 ill have to reboot and press the E key and add

Code:

nomodeset

to get an desktop environment

i realy don't know how to let the computer work with the proper driver for this
when i enter

Code:

lspci

in the terminal, it says the video card is an Geforce FX 5200 from nvidia
so i presume this OS is in need for an nvidia driver

when i enter your last command

Code:

sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

the computer went into a black screen to

you can see that in this short film i made: http://youtu.be/X_7kSyrmKFE

Hi, now it is known to be an FX5200, that is an old card (I have an old FX5700 lying around somewhere and that was fine with the GNU/Linux driver). I suspect it could be that the FX5700 has some peculiarities - Zorin 9 RC candidate is out - can you try and see what happens with that?

Hi Swarfendor437,

This evening i will download Zorin 9 core rc and burn it on a dvd.
Tomorow i wil try to install it on this old computer but for sure i will install it on my laptop to!

thanks for the advice, i will tell here if al went well

Hi Swarfendor 437,

Burned the new Zorin OS 9 on a dvd and try to install it on the desktop.
When i put the dvd in the computer there was no problem to get the splasch screen where in i could choose to try with the live session or inmediatly install the OS
The live session won't work when i choose for that ill get a black screen and my arrowpointer of the mouse
But when i press the install button there is no problem and i can install the Zorin OS 9 without any problems, only when the install is ready and asked to reboot the system ill end up with an black screen too.
So on the desktop computer i can't make any use of the new Zorin OS 9

On the other hand i have also a laptop HP Pavilion dv6000 and ill try to install the new Zorin OS 9 too.
Before i install the Zorin OS 9 their was already Zorin OS 8 on that machine wich i could try the live version and also could install it without no problems. Install it and after reboot direct use the desktop environment of OS 8
But now when i want to install Zorin OS 9 and after the install reboot the system ill also end's up with a black screen wich i could solved with the install of nvidia-173
So Zorin OS 9 works great on the laptop.

Ill hope we can solve the desktop too to be used with Zorin OS.

In the Zorin OS website i made a contact letter where ill hope they can offer a solution to.
this was my letter:
Hi there,

First of all, great congratulations with the release of Zorin OS 9.
My name is Hendrik Van Marcke and my nick name on the Belgium forum is Hensyr wherefore the forum is a Dutch forum www.pc-helpforum.be. I'm an film volunteer employee in that forum and test new OS and made a chort film about it and a dutch how to install discution: http://www.pc-helpforum.be/f82/zorin-os ... van-70727/, here you can see the film that i make about Zorin OS 8
As you can see my Englisch is not good, sorry for that ill try to make myself understandable so good as i can.
So i downloaded the new Zorin OS 9 to install it on two differend computers:
1) is a laptop: HP Pavilion dv6000 and when i install Zorin OS 8 all went very well and i could immediatly use the desktop after the install
but when i install the Zorin OS 9 with a dvd on this laptop then the install itself goes very smooth and well but after the install ill end up with a black screen so i had to update and upgrade in terminal and install nvidia-173 in the terminal to get an usefull desktop. So far so good, but i was not having this with the install of Zorin OS 8
The laptop is details are:
- 2 GB RAM
- AMD Turion(tm) 64x2 Mobile Technology TL-56x2 processor
- Nvidia Geforce Go 7200/PCI/SSE2/3DNOW! graphical card
- type OS 32 bit
- HDD 120 GB
2) and that's a more difficult problem with an desktop computer and a graphical card Nvidia Geforce FX 5200
when i want to install with the Zorin OS 8 ill have to change in the splash the graphical boot: acpi=off nomodeset to be able to install OS 8 and after install ill end up with a black screen to.
So ill have to boot the OS 8 with nomodeset to get a desktop environment and even after add in the terminal: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade and sudo apt-get install nvidia-173 i'm not able to get an desktop environment and still end's up with a black screen.
So i went to the Zorin Forum and asked Swarfendor437 what to do and after several solutions to try things nothing worked till today.
Swarfendor437 from the Zorin Forum give me the advice to try with the new Zorin OS 9.
And i burned the .iso file to a dvd.
So this time the install went very well but the live desktop won't work so i had to install without the live environment directly from the dvd.
After the install reboot the system and ill have the splash where i can choose what to do, when i press the enter button to start Zorin OS 9 i have a black screen too.
Ill hope there is a simpel solution for that because we all are Windows users and have no clue what to do in Linux when there are problems.
In the pc-helpforum we have presented Zorin OS 6 LTS and Zorin OS 8 as the best OS to replace Windows XP for now and i made a pdf how to install in Dutch for our people who are in surch for a solution with their good computer and Windows XP.
Hopefully you can direct me in the good direction to install Zorin OS 9 without problems.

Sincere and greetings,
Hendrik Van Marcke

Can we please continue on this matter please?

The computer has a 2GHz AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3200+
2GB of ram
and a nvidia Geforce FX 5200 graphical card

on an other partition there is Linux Mint 17 xfce installed and that OS works without any problems
the driver version used there is 173.14.39
Maybe we can use the same driver version for Zorin OS but i don't know how to install it in the terminal

Or maybe i should return to Zorin OS 6 LTS whitch worked fine on this machine

Some help would be very greatfull

You could try the solution posted here:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/245167/h ... er-to-work

but if it doesn't it may mean falling back to Zorin 6 - it is difficult what to advise unless there is another user on here with an FX5200 and has resolved the problem!

Hi Swarfendor437,

The possible solutions fail.
So I installed Zorin OS 6 LTS successfully.
This is a screenshot that I made from the desktop.


I will therefore conclude this topic as solved.

Greetings from Belgium
Hensyr Wolf

Well, this proves my point about what GNU/Linux should be about - breathing new life into older machines - GNU/Linux should NOT fall into the Windows trap of neverending upgrades!