[Hardy] screen flashes blank four times when X loading, X not coming up, ATI X1250

Unfortunately, lacking the log files is going to hamper debugging this issue, but perhaps there's some alternate techniques that could help...

First, when using th e alpha2 cd, try running sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop quickly before X freezes. If you're lucky, this may shut off X before it locks up.
Second, have you tried using a 64-bit version? Same issue, or does it work properly?
Third, have you tried installing using the alternate CD? It may skip the step that causes the X failure.

Fwiw, this bug sounds a lot like bug 127008, however afaik xresprobe is no longer being used during LiveCD boot. You could check via 'which xresprobe' - in theory it should no longer be present on the system.

Thanks for your fast reply, I will try out those solutions you suggested as soon as I get the time.

Hello, I've done some further testing, and I've actually found that the probably the wireless driver is to blame for the lockups. 64-bit or 32-bit does not seem to make any difference. If I disable the wireless functionality by pressing that button on the computer, it won't lock up. X is still acting quite weirdly though. It generates two log files, but the only difference seems to be the time:

per@desktopen:~$ diff Xorg.0.log Xorg.0.log.old
23c23
< (==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Thu Jan 24 21:52:27 2008
---
> (==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Thu Jan 24 21:52:20 2008

Note: I'm using the 64-bit version from now on.

I booted again, and this time Xorg.0.log.old was exactly the same as the one posted above (except for the time), however Xorg.0.log was different.

I also made a little video shot of this boot. Notice how the screen blanks four times. The computer is perfectly usable in terminal mode (net access via cable) and works without any lockups.

btw:
$ which xresprobe
/usr/sbin/xresprobe

so it's still there. However, the xresprobe bug seems quite different, as it happened in a later stage of the install, and not at the bootup of the live cd.

lspci-nn |grep VGA
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc RS690M [Radeon X1200 Series] [1002:791f]

and attaching full output of lspci -vvnn

I tried installing xorg-driver-fglrx, but that didn't seem to make any difference.

I also did a few times
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart
What is strange, it that alternately it yields a [OK] to stopping, but [fail] on starting, and nothing more. And alternately [ok] on both, and same error as described above (screen blanking four times, and then nothing more). This is the same regardless if fglrx is installed or not.

Hope this could be of some help in investigating the problem. Please tell me if there is any additional testing you think I should do.
I'd also like to test installing with alternate installer. To do this, I need to shrink my existing partition where windows is installed. The most difficult part of this is however getting my wifes permission, which could probably be quite tricky... So it could probably take some time... ;-)
If I get the time I might try to debug and report that problem with the wireless also.

Hello again, I noticed that I forgot to mention that it behaves the same way if I start up in failsafe graphics mode, no difference there. And the live-cd also sometimes hangs on boot-up even if the wireless is disabled. I also tried using the alternate-installer, but it hangs somewhere even before it comes to start X. So it looks like this machine has multiple problems with Linux.

I have now tested with alpha4, it seems to behave in exactly the same way,
the screen flashes blank fout times when it is trying to load X when
starting from the live-cd. The alternate-installer still hangs during the
installation-process (at a later stage than alpha3, but nevertheless hangs
completely).

So, sorry, no progress here. And (FYI), I'm traveling abroad now for six
weeks, and I'm not able to take this computer with me, so unfortunately I
will not be able to do any testing before mid/end of march something. But I
will do some testing then when I comes back.

I to have an atix1250 onboard chip on an asus mother board.
Every time I try to enable the restricted drivers and reboot I get a blank black screen using ctrl+alt+backspace i get a white screen that flickers with lines through it about four times. To get out of this I have to shut down the computer and do a cold restart. when it boots to grub I have to log in to restore, click on "try to fix x-server" then go to boot normal. at this time it boots fine but the restricted drivers are again disabled. I am running 8.04 final beta. Love the Ubuntu.