When Backtrack 5 R3 release, many users are experiencing blank screen when typing startx. This can happen because some VGA on the computer has not been supported by Backtrack. Backtrack 5 R3 is based on Ubuntu 10.4 and Ubuntu version so far is still a problem with VGA Intel and Nvidia.
To overcome Blank Screen when typing startx, there are some steps that we can do:
Step One: Enter the Backtrack Live DVD
Step Two: Setting the BIOS to boot to CDROM
Step Three: At the boot selection menu press the tab key to edit the grub boot.
Under the menu will be seen writing as follows:
file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.gz text splash vga=791--
Step Four: remove text splash vga = 791 - and add the following code:
xforcevesa noapic noapci nosplash irqpoll --
so it becomes
file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.gz xforcevesa noapic noapci nosplash irqpoll --
and press enter
