Long story short. I'm trying to get linux (ubuntu 10.4) triple booted on a mac pro with an ATI HD 4870 -- so we can compile some new ATI applications. After the initial screen with the keyboard and the little guy theres a blinking cursor then everything goes black. I get a little farther with the alternate install cd, however after hitting enter to install the screen goes black. Trying vga=771 and xforcevesa, haven't fixed it either. I was wondering if anyone had any idea what I need to do to get linux installed?

---

If I remember correctly, the ATI drivers for Linux are a little buggy.

I think that is about how far I got when I attempted to put Ubuntu 10.04 on my AMD Quad, I ended up putting XP on it instead.

---

If I remember correctly, the ATI drivers for Linux are a little buggy.

Which ATI drivers, and for what generation? The Linux ATI driver situation is complicated. The proprietary Catalyst drivers are awful but give you 3D on newer stuff, and at some point stopped supporting r500 and earlier. They opened all the specifications a few years ago after since their drivers were so terrible and becoming unmaintainable, but proprietary software development is dumb and they contracted out parts of the driver to other companies. Through the perversions of the copyright/legal system and lack of copyright assignments, this somehow leads to them not owning most of their own drivers and they couldn't just release them. Sun had the same problems GPLing some parts of Java, and this for some reason is a very common problem. Then other people had to start completely over on new free drivers to have a "clean room" implementation, which is complicated and takes years. So now there are partially working free drivers.

For r500 and earlier the free drivers are supposed to be mostly fine by now (X1900 and below). R600-R800 (Radeon 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000s) are supposed to be able to share most of the driver code.They now have 2D and partially working 3D with classic mesa drivers, and are working on new Gallium based drivers. If you only need 2D and basic 3D, for now the free drivers are already much nicer and let you have nice things like kernel mode setting (which is the default on radeon since kernel 2.6.35 I think).

I've been using the free radeon drivers from git on my radeon 4870 and it's mostly worked fine, but the only 3D I usually use in Linux is mathematica. However I had to switch to the Catalyst driver to work on the OpenCL application. Some people were working on an OpenCL implementation over Gallium using clang, but I think the development has been pretty slow and it's not really near complete. I eagerly await it since the ATI OpenCL compiler is proving to be quite terrible, and also requires the Catalyst drivers.

None of these matter at the installer though.

Not sure with Ubuntu ( opensuse guy here, last Ubuntu I used was way back )but if you are having trouble try the nomodeset param at the install/boot screen, or if there is the possibility of a text install try that also with the nomodeset param. This should disable the Kernel Mode Setting for the ATI ( radeonhd, radeon ) open source driver.

As I say I am more a Suse guy so maybe a quick look on the Ubuntu forums may have a better result.

Enjoy.

---

Mark
Nullus in verba
Caveat emptor
Nil illigitimi carborundum

You could try 10.10 Beta and see if that works, as the X server version is newer as are the ATI drivers. Ubuntu isn't very agile or keen at making any kind of sense on version upgrades to programs or drivers after the final release of a particular version of their OS. 10.04 isn't even fun to install on a system with a Fermi card. The suggestion on reddit ;) to burn the CD at as low as possible speed is very wise. I've made more coasters burning Linux CD/DVDs at a higher speed. They seem to be VERY sensitive to ANY burn errors.

Or you could simply dd an image of a distro onto a USB thumbdrive and install that way.

But really, I thought we were going to have OpenCL builds. If you're gonna build new ATI builds, can you build new CUDA builds that actually work too?

This is just a guess, since I have never tried this on a Mac. The problems I have had in the past when it comes to booting Ubuntu has been due to ACPI problems. I would suggest trying to add acpi=off at boot time.
If no luck with that then try.

acpi=off nolapic

But really, I thought we were going to have OpenCL builds. If you're gonna build new ATI builds, can you build new CUDA builds that actually work too?

The new versions will be done in OpenCL, yes.

---

Travis,
most probable your iso is damaged. check md5. then - what processor u've got on the Mac?

---

But really, I thought we were going to have OpenCL builds. If you're gonna build new ATI builds, can you build new CUDA builds that actually work too?

The new versions will be done in OpenCL, yes.

Actually, a developper provided with an OpenCL client application for the PPSieve subproject of PrimeGrid.
It simply consist of portage of the CUDA application ( http://www.primegrid.com/forum_thread.php?id=2683 ).
Could it be possible to do the same thing ?
Would you do other things for another research in the Milkyway@Home project ?

Otherwise, what's your situation concerning your Mac computer ?

Hello Travis. I talkex to somebody about triple loading a system they had System commander ,its from brothersoft. the latest version system commander 9 they mention from windows. I hope this will help.

---

First off, Apple makes use of EFI instead of a standard BIOS. On my Macbook Pro I need to install a program called rEFIt before I install linux. This solves a lot of issues and enabled me to install Ubuntu 10.04 without hassles using the default settings in the installer. Of course, my macbook had an nVidia graphics card but that should not be of any concern during the installation phase since the installer uses a standard resolution and no hardware acceleration.

rEFIt is used to get around the way the hard drive is partioned and seems to provide the EFI code required to boot the system correctly. rEFIt doesn't replace any of Apple's code and you can remove it without hassle. When installing a windows based operating system most people use BootCamp effectively gives windows access to the correct settings.

I installed Fedora Core 13 on the macbook without refit and I got similar problems to those you describe. After installing rEFIt eveything worked out fine, I'm only running linux on it for the moment until my current project is completed and I still had to install rEFIt to overcome the boot and install issues.

Travis,

I had this same problem with an nVidia onboard chip. It seems as tho it is a common problem with either ATI or nVidia.

Assuming you are booting from the LiveCD, when you get the purple screen with the Keyboard and Stick figure, hit the spacebar. Then, select your language. You should now be at the selection screen. Press F6 and choose the nomodeset option. Then go your merry way.

Here are some links that discuss the problem and solutions.

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-fix-ubuntu-10-04-lts-lucid-blank-screen-at-startup.html

http://ubuntu-tutorials.com/2010/05/06/ubuntu-10-04-lucid-blank-screen-at-startup-workaround/

As for multi-boot, you may want to look at the following for some ideas. Be careful, 10.04 (and 9.10) went to Grub2 which is a bear to setup as described at this link.

http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?t=147959

YMMV

There is documentation on this in the ubuntu wiki here:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookPro

Installing debian on macbook pro 5,5(helpful for refit)
http://allurgroceries.com/mbp55/

I also tried Ubuntu 10.4 and had the same result you had. I have tried it on two different monitors and always get the same result you did. I thought that the resolution Hz value was higher than the monitor would take. Just a swag.

I ended up installing 9.10 and everything works just fine. I have built the open server stuff into it and it works perfectly. Don't know what the problem could be with 10.4, but the Linux propellor heads won't share the solution with the masses.

I, too, am a Bucky fan. Can't help but smile when I read them.

Steve.pgmr