Jump to content

White screen of death [solved]


AlRoss
 Share

Recommended Posts

Well, thanks to all you kind guys who helped me through the dual-boot install and recovering those lost Windoze partitions. Dual boot works a treat now.

 

I got so excited that I figured it might be fine to try some of those fancy 3D-windowing choices - Compiz Fusion I think. Oh what a fool am I! Here I am on Windoze accessing this forum for help yet again.

 

All I can see now is a blank white screen with nothing on it at all apart from the mouse pointer. To be sure the pointer changes as the mouse moves around the screen but other than that nothing but a blank white screen. I gotta be honest and say I'm not impressed. This is the second deep hole I've fallen into and right now I'm feeling like I'm back 25 years playing dungeons and dragons on a PDP-11 (yes I am that old!). That dungeon had a totally dark cave where everything was pure guesswork and you "died" regularly. I gave it up after that.

 

I've tried using the distro DVD to re-install. It wants to erase the partitions. I'm getting wily and ain't having any of that!! I've also tried asking it to "upgrade" to Mandriva spring 2008. It heads off down that road OK but it soon gets lost and the script gets stuck in a loop. I've also tried choosing the "safe" mode - its plain boring white too - so less safe than one might imagine.

 

BUT, I notice that the boot process has a verbose mode which also offers an "interactive" boot up. I'm wondering if anyone knows how I can use that to undo my folly.

 

Failing that I also have a fall back plan. If all else fails I'm gonna use Windoze to scrub those Linux partitions and start all over again. You can imagine my enthusiasm for that :unsure: Still at least I know what to do to recover my Windoze partitions next time round :D

 

But seriously can anyone point this foolish man at a way back out of this [white] hole. Bear in mind that I can see NOTHING on the desktop. It's a total whiteout apart from the mouse pointer.

 

Thanks in anticipation.

 

Al

 

 

[moved from Installing Mandriva by spinynorman]

Edited by AlRoss
Link to comment
Share on other sites

When you have your white screen, try typing Ctrl + Alt + F1

Login as root and type XFdrake

 

Have a look at this thread:

http://forum.mandriva.com/viewtopic.php?t=92260

 

My guess is your video card is not sufficiently powerful to run Compiz Fusion. It IS pretty though B)

Edited by daniewicz
Link to comment
Share on other sites

First, what display card do you have?

 

If you can get to the log in screen choose drak3d from the session type menu and disable compiz from there.

 

Alternatively you can expand Advanced under compiz and choose native support instead of Xgl or vice versa and see if that works.

 

If you can't get to the graphical log in screen then press Alt+Ctrl+F1, log in as root then run drak3d and disable 3D desktop.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks guys. That Ctrl + Alt + F1 caper is one to remember! The other forum link was a big help too.

 

Using XFdrake I got back to a stable position so here I am back on Mandriva :) And it really has to be the way to go. Logging back into Windoze was very frustrating - the startup is unbelievably slow, we're talking 10 to 20 minutes - whereas Mandriva is up in around 30 seconds.

 

But I guess I need to be a little less adventurous with environment settings for a while. Looks like my video card isn't up to the likes of Compiz Fusion. Tell you what though. At one point late last night, still blundering about in the whiteout, moving the mouse off to left or right of the screen produced a nice rotating cube effect - just a snow white cube is all.

 

Thanks again for the great advice. Think I'll try walking for a while now. Running too soon gets me bruises :D

 

Al

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...