Saturday, April 7, 2012

BACKTRACK 5 R2 or BT5R2 Blank Screen Issue

I've been working with BackTrack for a bit and needed to install the BT5R2 variant on a Lenovo T410s. What I found is that it boots fine, but once I tried to load the GUI or xwindows I was greeted with a blank or black screen and a blinking caps lock; strange. Here's what I did to get BT5R2 installed:

Boot normally and login as the root user.

DO NOT execute the startx command yet.

Execute the following command below exactly as listed:

modprobe i915 modeset=1

The modprobe command will load the Intel video drivers and allow xwindows to load.

Now you can use the startx command to load the GUI or xwindows, whatever you want to call it.

Once in the GUI you can run the Install BackTrack script to load BT5R2 on to the hard drive.

Once BT5R2 is installed you'll need to make the following modifications to GRUB so the Intel video drivers will load on each subsequent reboot.

Execute the following command:

nano /etc/default/grub

Once the file is open, search for the following line:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="text splash vga=791"

Change the above line to the following:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="text splash vga=791 i915.modeset=1"

Now save and close the grub config file. Should be Ctrl + O, then Ctrl + X

Now execute the following command:

update-grub

Reboot and startx should work fine.

The solutions above were discovered/developed by others, although, in some cases, the direct solution path was not always obvious. If anything, I organized a collection of solutions and they worked for me. I hope this helps someone out.

4 comments:

  1. Guess there's no way to fix this on the persistent USB drive - have to install to hard disk.

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  2. Not sure, if it is a persistent install it seems you could modify the grub config file as outlined above, save it, update-grub, and it should startx just fine on subsequent reboots. I've not done the usb install so there could be limitations of which I'm not aware.

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  3. Same problem check here: http://www.refreshit.info/2012/08/solvedblackscreen-problem-in-backtrack.html

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  4. when i use "update-grub" command i get this error /usr/sbin/grub-probe: error: cannot find a device for / (is /dev mounted?) ... im using a live USB with BT5r3 with 2Gb of persistent space. can u teach me how to solve that problem please?

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