I just bought an HP pavillion g6 laptop, with the hope of installing Linux on it. I have now tried both Linux Mint (my first choice) and Ubuntu, and both simply give me a black screen from the moment it begins loading the Live CD. I think it reaches the login screen, I can hear the start-up jingle, but all is just black.
Mint gives an "Automatic boot in 10…9…" screen, then goes black. I can stop the countdown and pick from a few options, I tried the "compatibility mode" but that didn't help. The other options are integrity and memory checks, or to boot from the harddisk.
Ubuntu also shows a brief purple screen, where I can escape and either try it or install it. Given the problem I'm having I don't want to install just yet, so I haven't tried that. Picking "Try Ubuntu" I get a black screen immediately after.
Google turned up a suggestion of pressing CTRL+ALT+F2 after it has finished loading, to get a shell, but that doesn't seem to do anything.
I also searched through the BIOS options and set "Switchable Graphics Mode" to Fixed instead of Dynamic, but that didn't help either (so I've switched it back again).
I'm out of ideas. I'd prefer to get Mint to work, since I'm tired of Ubuntu and want to try out Mint instead.
Update I am able to get it to work by setting the nomodeset boot option, but without that I still get a black screen (I can just barely make out some elements on the screen, but it's very, very dark). I tried installing the proprietary ATI drivers in the Additional Drivers window, but that didn't seem to help, or they weren't installed properly, I can't seem to tell.
Best Answer
There's a launchpad bug about Ubuntu booting with the laptop backlight off; that might be the problem you're seeing.