Forwarding this bug from Ubuntu reporter Sennaista:
http://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-ati/+bug/560056

[Problem]
Booting a LiveCD results in gpu lockup with screen corruption.  It appears the GPU is being reset every few seconds.  Switching to fbdev got around the problem and allowed -fglrx to be installed.

[Original Description]
I downloaded the beta 2 ISO from the servers and made a LiveCD for fresh install of 10.04. The boot process is carried out until near the end, the purple plymouth screen goes away and then all I get is flickering screen with lines running across it. I did a few things like "nomodeset" and "pci=nomsi" but nothing does. The later one sends the monitor into power saving mode and the only way out is a hard reboot.

I tried to drop to the terminal when the screen starts to flicker and ran

#dmesg | grep drm

and there are error messages related to my graphics card. Seems like for some reason the GPU is being reset every few seconds. See the screen shot attached for the exact error messages.

I'm trying to boot Lucid on system which includes:

Interl i5
ATI Radeon HD4730
4GB RAM
Dual monitor



I think this is caused by the open source ATI drivers. This is how I managed to bypass the problem, if anyone else has the same issue:

Get a liveCd/LiveUSB and boot normally without any options. Let plymouth do its work and once you get to the stage that the GPU is being reset every few seconds press Ctrl+Alt+F1 to drop to terminal and execute the following commands:

#sudo stop gdm

#sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Type in the following set of commands then save and exit.

# /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Section "Device"
        Identifier "Configured Video Device"
        Driver "fbdev"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier "Default Screen"
        Monitor "Configured Monitor"
        Device "Configured Video Device"
EndSection[

This would tell X to use framebuffer instead of the actual drivers for your graphics card. After saving the file all you need to do is to run

#sudo start gdm

And you will get the LiveCD desktop and you can install from there. After it is finished you can restart your computer and either use the same xorg.conf file or install the official ATI drivers and let them take over. Whatever you do though don't just use the open source drivers because you won't be able to boot and have to do all the above steps again.


DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: linux-image-2.6.32-19-generic 2.6.32-19.28
Regression: No
Reproducible: Yes
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-19.28-generic 2.6.32.10+drm33.1
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-19-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.21.
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER        PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0:  sennaista   1545 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/controlC1:  sennaista   1545 F.... pulseaudio
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xfbff8000 irq 22'
   Mixer name	: 'Realtek ALC887'
   Components	: 'HDA:10ec0887,1458a002,00100202'
   Controls      : 40
   Simple ctrls  : 22
Card1.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:1 'camera'/'USB camera at usb-0000:00:1a.0-2, full speed'
   Mixer name	: 'USB Mixer'
   Components	: 'USB045e:00f5'
   Controls      : 3
   Simple ctrls  : 2
Card2.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:2 'HDMI'/'HDA ATI HDMI at 0xfbdfc000 irq 17'
   Mixer name	: 'ATI R6xx HDMI'
   Components	: 'HDA:1002aa01,00aa0100,00100100'
   Controls      : 4
   Simple ctrls  : 1
Card2.Amixer.values:
 Simple mixer control 'IEC958',0
   Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined penum
   Playback channels: Mono
   Mono: Playback [on]
Date: Sat Apr 10 15:07:22 2010
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=e21ba9dc-2f5b-4f26-8e43-bc02faf2e45a
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release Candidate amd64 (20091020.3)
IwConfig:
 lo        no wireless extensions.
 
 eth0      no wireless extensions.
 
 vboxnet0  no wireless extensions.
MachineType: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. P55M-UD2
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-19-generic root=UUID=cc508dfd-af8d-4486-a575-ab39c546da57 ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8RelatedPackageVersions: linux-firmware 1.33
RfKill:
 
SourcePackage: linux
dmi.bios.date: 07/31/2009
dmi.bios.vendor: Award Software International, Inc.
dmi.bios.version: F3
dmi.board.name: P55M-UD2
dmi.board.vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
dmi.board.version: x.x
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAwardSoftwareInternational,Inc.:bvrF3:bd07/31/2009:svnGigabyteTechnologyCo.,Ltd.:pnP55M-UD2:pvr:rvnGigabyteTechnologyCo.,Ltd.:rnP55M-UD2:rvrx.x:cvnGigabyteTechnologyCo.,Ltd.:ct3:cvr:
dmi.product.name: P55M-UD2
dmi.sys.vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.

[lspci]
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Core Processor DMI [8086:d131] (rev 11)
    	Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device [1458:5000]
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc RV770 CE [Radeon HD 4710] [1002:944e]
    	Subsystem: Hightech Information System Ltd. Device [1787:3000]