Package: debian-installer Version: 20110106+b1
HARDWARE:
This is on a 2004 Laptop with the following video hardware:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon RV250 [Mobility
FireGL 9000] (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: Uniwill Computer Corp Device 2301
Flags: bus master, stepping, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64,
IRQ 16
Memory at d0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
I/O ports at b000 [size=256]
Memory at ffcf0000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Expansion ROM at ffcc0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: [58] AGP version 2.0
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
INSTALLER:
The debian squeeze installer as of Jan 14 on i386
(Selections: Laptop, Graphical User Interface).
BUG+SOLUTION:
The installer enables kernel mode-switching (KMS).
This causes the "radeon" module of the X server to end in a blank,
but back-lighted, screen. The computer is unusable.
The solution that worked for me:
echo options radeon modeset=0 > /etc/modprobe.d/radeon-kms.conf
COMPLICATIONS:
In several tries I found no way to get to a working commandline
from the grub prompt. Anything I tried got the screen blanked
during the boot process.
This made it a particularly nasty bug. In the end, I hit Ctrl-C
several times during boot, got a single-user prompt but without
network connection, dinstalled gdm3, rebooted, and installed the
ssh daemon.
What didn't work to get a commandline:
o The 'safe' boot choice in grub.
o Changing the 'quiet' option in grub's kernel commandline
to 'single', 'Single', 'S', '3', '1'.
o Using the following options in grub:
'vga=none', 'nomodeset'
o The Ctrl-Alt-F1 combination once the screen was blanked.
AFFECTED PACKAGES:
I'm not sure who should fix this particular problem:
- installer should configure radeon without KMS
- grub should have a working option to get to a commandline
boot without any graphics mode switching or X
- kernel should honor the nomodeset parameter
- xserver-xorg-video-radeon should not use KMS by default
- the new init scripts should have a documented way to
get to a non-X mode
--
Claus Fischer <claus.fisc...@clausfischer.com>
http://www.clausfischer.com/
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