Attempting to install/try ubuntu (11.10, 12.04) on my new laptop, using a liveCD (and tried USB). I get the purple screen (with the man/keyboard at the bottom) and after that the screen flashes bright white before going black. Ubuntu continues to load in the background, with login sound etc but the screen is off.

I have tried as many different solutions as I could find including:

• using nomodestep, xforcevesa, i915.modeset=0, and also now i915.modeset=1 in boot options (seperately): varying consequences, but either I end up at a blinking cursor with no prompt, a command line (startx fails: no screen found), or the original blank screen again

• Tried booting from VirtualBox - it crashes at the same place the screen would go blank when using a CD/USB

• tried 11.04: I don't have this problem BUT when trying to install, I get a ubi-partman error 141 (possibly down to the three partitions that came on my laptop... not sure why HP needed there own separate partition for HP Tools...)

Model: HP Pavillion DV6 6B08SA
Processor: AMD Quad-Core A6-3410MX APU with Radeon HD 6545G2 Dual Graphics (1.6 GHZ 4 MB L2 cache )
Chipset: AMD RS880M

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I just want to be able to partition the drive and install Ubuntu. I'm assuming the issue is graphics card related, although I have no confirmation of that.

Update:

• Tried the ?orkarounds on https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Troubleshooting/BlankScreen - set gfxpayload=text changed nothing, removing splash did nothing and setting vesafb.nonsense=1 did nothing either. I'd like to be able to collect some log information somehow, but I can't get to a command line from the liveCD.

• tried using the latest 12.04 beta, same issue

• tried nomodeset without splash or quiet. get the following (tail of) output before it freezes on that screen:

  * Starting configure network device security   [OK]
  * Starting configure network device            [OK]
  [ 25.720899] ieee80211 phy0: w1_ops_config: change monitor mode: false (implement)
  [ 25.720923] ieee80211 phy0: w1_ops_config: change power-save mode: false (implement)
  * Starting restore sound card(s') mixer state(s)  [fail]
  [ 25.721849] ieee80211 phy0: w1_ops_bss_info_changed: qos enabled: false (implement) 
  * Stopping save kernel messages           [OK]
  * Starting bluetooth                      [OK]
  * PulseAudio configured for per-user sessions
  saned disabled; edit /etc/default/saned
  [ 25.988016] hci_cmd_timer: hci0 command tx timeout
  [ 26.207225] bad LUN (0:1)
  [ 26.223735] bad target number (1:0)
  [ 26.252111] bad target number (2:0)
  [ 26.272170] bad target number (3:0)
  [ 26.300154] bad target number (4:0)
  [ 26.328162] bad target number (5:0)
  [ 26.344180] bad target number (6:0)
  [ 26.368142] bad target number (7:0)
  * Checking battery state...               [OK]
  * Stopping System V runlevel capability   [OK]
  

  Does this give any indication of the problem? the false (implement) messages also reappear when I press the power button to ask it to shutdown, followed by a [fail] status for killing remaining processes.