I have been continuing to work the angle that this is a video driver
problem. Updates:
I already have the Xorg meta-package installed (xserver-xorg-video-all)
that installs their whole suite of drivers.
I installed the linux-firmware-nonfree package (installs more video
drivers, all proprietary), rebooted, and re-tested the non-working
hardware. No change in results.
There are other proprietary binary drivers available for some video
cards. E.g. for ATI, there is fglrx and fglrx-updates. So those are an
option, though I think I read somewhere about complications uninstalling
those when they don't work.
So I'm working on troubleshooting Xorg on the client. Ican ssh into at
least some of the stalled clientsand look at /var/log/Xorg.?.log. For
one Diamond card with a Savage 4 chipsetthat boots to a login screen for
which the top half looks vaguely correct and the bottom half is black,
the Xorg log file seems normal (though I don't have any expertise at
reading these logs).
But ssh into a stalled clientwith an ATI 210888GX [Mach64 GX] showed
that xorg had matched fglrx as autoconfigured driver 0 and ati as driver
1. But fglrx was not installed, and the log ends with a few ATIMach64
entries and then the messages:
(EE) Screen(s) found, but none with a usable configuration.
Fatal server error: no screens found
Server terminated with error (1)
Then I installed fglrx and still got the same thing.
Anyone know of some documentation that would help me read/troubleshoot
the Xorg logs better?
A related troubleshooting question: Can I force usage of a certain
driver? I read that this was supported with xorg.conf, but that does
not exist by default now, and Xorg uses an automated configuration
system called KMS (Kernel Mode Setting), about which I know next to
nothing. But perhaps a configuration via xorg.conf is still
respected/supported?
-----------------
In any case, after running lspci and lshw with several setups, I now
have a better identification of some of the hardware:
Worked:
- PCI Matrox Millennium II MGA 2164W (PCI card)
- Intel 82810E (integrated)
- ATI RV200 QW [Radeon 7500]
- ATI Rage 128 Pro AGP
- ATI Rage 128 RF/SG AGP
- HP VectaVL PC w/ integrated video, probably either:
Matrox G250 2X AGP
Matrox Millennium G400 4X AGP
Partially Worked (got past the blank, black screen but then failed):
- S3 Inc. Savage 4
- Diamond Speedstar A50 with SiS 6326AGP chip (AGP card)
Failed:
- Trident 3DImage 9850 (AGP card)
- S3 Trio64V+ (PCI card)
- Diamond Viper with Power Weitek 9000/9001 and Oak Technology T9351
chips (PCI card)
- ATI 210888GX [Mach64 GX] (PCI card)
- ATI 3D Rage Pro AGP 1x/2x
- Intel Corporation 82G33/G31 Express Integrated Graphics Controller
(rev 10)
On 12/7/2012 7:10 PM, John Hupp wrote:
<snip>
On 12/7/2012 2:19 PM, John Hupp wrote:
To give my supposition a bit more weight, I removed the discrete
video card from a working Lubuntu 12.10 machine and installed it in
the machine that fails both as a client and a
standalone-with-Live-CD. It then successfully booted the Live CD.
The card that worked was an old PCI Matrox Millennium II MGA 2164W.
The card that failed was a slightly newer AGP card with a Trident
3DImage 9850 chip.
On 12/7/2012 11:21 AM, John Hupp wrote:
One of the PC's that fails to boot as an LTSP client also has enough
resources to boot the Lubuntu 12.10 Live CD, so I tried that, and I
found that it fails to boot with the same stalled blank, black
screen after the Lubuntu splash screen. I left it like that for ~
15 minutes to check for an 8-minute stall (which another user
reported elsewhere), and it didn't budge.
Since Valerio P is troubleshooting (below) what seems like the same
behavior with LTSP clients on Edu/Ubuntu 12.04 servers, and since I
show the same behavior also on a Lubuntu 12.10 Live CD, I now wonder
if this is a *buntu 12.04/12.10 problem related to certain chipsets
or video chips. Complicating that observation somewhat, I note this
machine I just ran the Live CD on had run both Lubuntu and Ubuntu
12.04 without such a behavior.
On 12/4/2012 4:16 PM, John Hupp wrote:
Valerio Pachera on the Edubuntu list has been troubleshooting what
seems like the very same problem. His thread came apart somehow
but you can see all the posts here:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edubuntu-users/2012-December/thread.html
He got his clients working *most* of the time by disabling NBD
compression. (Undoubtedly performance has taken a hit.) He refers
to documentation of a previous problem with NBD compression on fat
clientswhich presumably was solved, but now gives the appearance of
having returned. See
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuLTSP/FatClients#Reenabling_NBD_compression
On my server, there was no /etc/ltsp/ltsp-update-image.conf file,
but I created one, added the NO_COMP line, and updated theimage.
This did not solve the problem with any clients I tested. Though
our respective setups are differenton a number of points, detailed
pretty well here:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edubuntu-users/2012-December/007206.html
(snip, snip, snip)
On 11/29/2012 5:53 PM, John Hupp wrote:
I thought I might be working through my last few big problems,
but instead I found another one.
After installing Lubuntu Quantal on a newly formatted disk and
setting up LTSP some weeks ago, I have been working only with a
certain two-machine test setup. In contrast to past
troubleshooting, I have not been swapping in multiple server or
client machines.
But to address something I was working on, I tried a different
client, and this one failed to boot altogether. Then I tried a
couple more different clients (different makes/models), and they
had the same behavior. That behavior is that after the client
displays the blue splash screen, which then drops to
black-and-white (normal behavior, I think), it then goes to a
blank (black) screen. It does not display the GUI login screen.
If in lts.conf I set SCREEN_07=shell, then I can successfully
log in to a shell. I also see there among the on-screen boot
messages "Starting load fallback graphics devices [fail]."
The last entry in dmesg also refers to the above failure.
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