Score:1

iMac Ubuntu Resolution Problem

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I'm trying to install Ubuntu on a 2007 iMac, and on when I boot into Ubuntu trial mode to install it (with or without safe graphics), I get this weird problem: borked ubuntu

It looks like ubuntu thinks the horizontal resolution is larger than it actually is, and so each line drawn to the display is wrapping around to the next line of physical pixels, but I'm not entirely sure. Any ideas how to fix this? (I'm booting with nomodeset, in case that's relevant). I have tried googling around but as you can imagine, it's quite hard to describe this problem to google. Thanks!

I'm running Ubuntu 20.04

ChanganAuto avatar
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Try Lubuntu or Xubuntu. Vanilla Ubuntu (with Gnome) is a highly demanding desktop environment, likely too much for a machine of that vintage.
Will Blayney avatar
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@ChanganAuto I have since got it working, and it performs just fine. My experience with Ubuntu has generally been great even on older machines, but I will remember Lubuntu and Xubuntu as alternatives if I ever find a machine slow enough to warrant them. I was surprised to find that this iMac works through fairly large slicing operations on PrusaSlicer without hanging, so despite being old it's doing fine.
Score:0
us flag

I fixed it. I edited the boot config (scrolled to option and pressed e, there's some docs on this here) in GRUB for the graphics safe mode and removed the nomodeset option. After a long time (black screen) it booted just fine.

I did a bit of reading on this, and it looks like GRUB has a default resolution that can be carried forward to a booted OS when nomodeset is used, and if the h or v dimension is incorrect then you can get row overflow or underflow issues as I did. If booting without nomodeset doesn't fix the problem, it's possible that hardcoding the resolution of the display (discussed here) will fix it.

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