I recently installed Ubuntu 9.10 (karmic koala) on an unused workstation I had. Before installing, I decided to try it out to make sure it would work with the system. Upon livecd boot and then at installation, I got a black screen with a white cursor (non-blinking) in the top left corner. Even though the system was a 3.2ghz system I decided to let it sit there for a few minutes to make sure it wasn’t still working. Well, working is one thing it wasn’t doing…

Before getting into how I resolved the black screen, let me tell you why I didn’t install Windows XP on this system.

It is an HP dc5700 and I had a genuine Windows OS CD (from HP) and a Recovery CD from HP for the dc5800. The system even had the original WindowsXP COA affixed on top. Booting from HP’s recovery CD told me “this CD is intended for a different system”, booting from the OS cd asked me for a key then requested activation after installation, something a working OEM OS CD shouldn’t do.  Don’t worry Microsoft, Windows won’t be running on that system ever again.

Anyway, onto the resolution of Ubuntu’s black screen. I searched a few older forums and found that the APIC (Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller) setting is most likely at fault for the black screen. The APIC was developed by Intel to solve the limited available IRQs and support interrupts on SMP (Symmetric Multi Processor) systems. When booting Ubuntu, hit F6 at the menu and use the space bar to place an X next to “noapic” and “nolapic”. (nolapic turns off the Local Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller)

Turning these off resolved my black screen issue on Ubuntu 9.10 and the system works great after the quick Ubuntu install. I have a few of these systems and, even though I currently have no idea what to do with it, will probably make a private Ubuntu Cloud just to see what it can do.

Let me know if this solved your black screen on install or if not, how you resolved yours.