Install With Safe Graphics

My first weird question (you knew it was coming). On the old desktop I use for Linux, circa 2009, I can only run very light systems due to graphics issues. Bodhi, Bunsen Labs will work on Nouveau drivers. Ubuntu 16 works on Nvidia driver 304, but you can't install it after Ubuntu 16 as that driver is obsolete and unsupported by both Nvidia and the Linux kernel beyond 4.4. So I have Bodhi 6 going, as well as Ubuntu 16 (with extended security maintenance).

I did try getting an old video card from around that era, but it wouldn't work and I resigned myself to using only light systems. (Zorin Lite is too heavy, at least 15 was). Now, I wanted to put Zorin 16 on my wife's notebook, which I did, that's working great. but to preview it, I ran Z-16 with Safe Graphics on my old machine. I actually found it quite usable, as I have a big monitor, so the weird resolution is OK on it. In fact, my aging eyes are liking it a lot. Solitaire looks pretty funky though; the cards are kind of squashed.

anyway, I installed it from the USB, which I had booted with Sage Graphics. when I ran Zorin for the first time, it booted into regular mode, which is unusable due to screen craziness. So I booted next time into Safe mode. This manages to get me into the system with Safe Graphics. But I have to do it every time, and have to restart the computer again. So it takes two starts to get going.

Now, I'm doing this primarily to re-familiarize myself with Zorin, so I can solve whatever problems my wife runs into. But it's cool to be able to run Zorin on this old machine too. I was thinking of installing Grub Customizer, so I can set Recovery Mode as the default boot. Anybody have any thoughts on this? Is there another way to do boot into Recovery mode?

To stay in safe graphics at boot, add nomodeset as a grub parameter.

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset"

Once booted, remove nvidia graphcis drivers entirely:

sudo apt remove --purge nvidia*

To enter the Advanced Options or Recovery menu- hold or tap the left shift key at boot.

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Thanks, I'll try that. But how do I save it once make the entry?

Once you have finished making your edits in nano, hit ctrl+x to exit. Then the y key to say yes to save, then the enter key to save as current configuration. The terminal will then revert to normal.

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I tried editing the grub file, but had no success. I put things back as they were, installed Grub Customizer, and set it to boot into Recovery Mode. That works, I just have to let it go through its booting cycle, hit Enter twice and it boots to safe graphics.

I probably didn't do the commands you gave me right. Haven't done that sort of thing for awhile. but problem solved anyway so all is well!

The most important thing is What Works For You. :wink: