Re: Black Screen on First Boot
Dan Norton composed on 2016-12-17 20:57 (UTC-0500): Felix Miata wrote: > It's probably time to either switch to a newer PC, or try a less > demanding DE, or even another distro, if the Debian installer is making > it too hard for you to avoid Gnome... Thanks for your help, Felix. Glad you got it going. :-) I put the adapter cards back in, and successfully re-installed with Xfce instead of Gnome. Seems to work pretty well so far. There is some mouse sluggishness with Firefox (scroll wheel and marking selections) but other apps seem to not have this problem. Sound card output is excellent. It might be worth checking to see if xserver-xorg-input-libinput is installed and used rather than the old xserver-xorg-input-mouse, which is not installed here on an even older GeForce2 working nicely in Stretch using TDE on an ancient Athlon XP 2100+ (1733MHz). -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/
Re: Black Screen on First Boot
On 12/17/2016 05:05 AM, Felix Miata wrote: >> Oh no! something has gone wrong. >> A problem has occurred and the system can't recover. All extensions have >> been disabled as a precaution. > > This is typical of trying to use GDM/Gnome on old hardware. > > http://lmgtfy.com/?q=%22Oh+no!+something+has+gone+wrong.%22+%22A+problem+has+occurred+and+the+system+can%27t+recover.%22 > > > It's probably time to either switch to a newer PC, or try a less > demanding DE, or even another distro, if the Debian installer is making > it too hard for you to avoid Gnome... Thanks for your help, Felix. I put the adapter cards back in, and successfully re-installed with Xfce instead of Gnome. Seems to work pretty well so far. There is some mouse sluggishness with Firefox (scroll wheel and marking selections) but other apps seem to not have this problem. Sound card output is excellent. - Dan
Re: Black Screen on First Boot
Dan Norton composed on 2016-12-15 16:21 (UTC-0500): Oh no! something has gone wrong. A problem has occurred and the system can't recover. All extensions have been disabled as a precaution. This is typical of trying to use GDM/Gnome on old hardware. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=%22Oh+no!+something+has+gone+wrong.%22+%22A+problem+has+occurred+and+the+system+can%27t+recover.%22 It's probably time to either switch to a newer PC, or try a less demanding DE, or even another distro, if the Debian installer is making it too hard for you to avoid Gnome, e.g.: http://antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Main_Page#About_antiX -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/
Re: Black Screen on First Boot
On 12/14/2016 06:34 AM, debian-user-digest-requ...@lists.debian.org wrote: Something else: if your motherboard has onboard video, remove the AGP card and give onboard a go. Most motherboards of that era with Intel CPUs and AGP slots also provide an onboard video port. OK, the following gets past the black screen to the login screen: Removed the AGP card and a sound card, leaving no adapter cards plugged in. Took the cap off the onboard video port and plugged in the display that came with this IBM ThinkCentre. The login screen appears with my user name. I enter my password and get: :( Oh no! something has gone wrong. A problem has occurred and the system can't recover. All extensions have been disabled as a precaution. Log Out The cursor has disappeared. Press enter and get back to the login screen. Cursor reappears. Try to login as "admin" and get rejected as if wrong password was entered. All the above is consistent and repeatable. The correct passwords are being entered. - Dan
Re: Black Screen on First Boot
Dan Norton composed on 2016-12-14 20:40 (UTC-0500): Until you know what if any grub configuration changes are required, editing is premature. Editing on the fly at boot time is how one troubleshoots grub-related troubles. Not sure what "editing on the fly at boot time" means. Please elaborate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_fly temporary change or runtime change https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7490/16112246542_bc1875a397_z.jpg Anyhoo, is this a grub problem or an install problem? Don't know yet. Does anything happen that you can see after you make a selection in your Grub menu? If so, what? The display works during boot to the point where the grub menu comes up. It's afterward that it goes black - when the GNOME screen should appear. Can you hear anything happen after you make your Grub menu selection. Does black appear instantly once you make your selection? How long are you used to waiting between when you make the selection and when you see the greeter appear? Gnome is rather demanding of the hardware. Maybe yours is old enough to have had some support dropped, necessitating that you use something other than GDM and/or Gnome, or suffer rather substantial performance handicap(s). As alternative to GDM there are several, such as lightdm and sddm. For DE on such old hardware as yours, I suggest you give a look at TDE[1] or AntiX[2]. [1] https://www.trinitydesktop.org/ [2] http://antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Main_Page -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/
Re: Black Screen on First Boot
On 12/14/2016 06:34 AM, debian-user-digest-requ...@lists.debian.org wrote: No quiet or splash in /boot/grub/grub.cfg but you give me an idea: is there a way to copy /etc/default/grub to a memory stick, edit it on another machine, then write it back? There is no mount command in the grub set. Until you know what if any grub configuration changes are required, editing is premature. Editing on the fly at boot time is how one troubleshoots grub-related troubles. Not sure what "editing on the fly at boot time" means. Please elaborate. Anyhoo, is this a grub problem or an install problem? The display works during boot to the point where the grub menu comes up. It's afterward that it goes black - when the GNOME screen should appear. - Dan
Re: Black Screen on First Boot
Dan Norton composed on 2016-12-13 18:04 (UTC-0500): It's impossible to accurately answer all your questions without knowing your gfxchip (lspci) or display model (hwinfo)... You need a shell prompt, not a grub2 prompt, to run those. Grub doesn't recognize any of those commands, but from hard copy: Display adapter: NVIDIAGeForce4 8X AGP ; That is indeed rather ancient, initially launched in February 2002. Display: LG W1953TV ; According to https://www.cnet.com/products/lg-w1953t-lcd-monitor-18-5/specs/ your display is 1366x768, not 1360x768. I don't think either resolution existed at the time your GeForce4 was designed or marketed, when any sort of widescreen display was still rather new and/or expensive. Pentium 4 3.0 I have several. I have Jessie on two old machines here in that general speed category. 1-Check if Plymouth is installed. If yes, purge it. Did not find it. One less thing to break. :-) 2-If Plymouth is not relevant, try testing changes to Grub's boot time parameters by hitting the "e" key as soon as the Grub menu appears, and remove quiet and splash from it. If it works, change /etc/default/grub to match and run grub-mkconfig. No quiet or splash in /boot/grub/grub.cfg but you give me an idea: is there a way to copy /etc/default/grub to a memory stick, edit it on another machine, then write it back? There is no mount command in the grub set. Until you know what if any grub configuration changes are required, editing is premature. Editing on the fly at boot time is how one troubleshoots grub-related troubles. Something else: if your motherboard has onboard video, remove the AGP card and give onboard a go. Most motherboards of that era with Intel CPUs and AGP slots also provide an onboard video port. If you have an onboard video port in addition to the AGP one, be sure to plug the cable into the AGP one. When both are present, the onboard if it ever works cannot be counted on to stay working unless there is specific provision to do so in the motherboard BIOS.. -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/
Re: Black Screen on First Boot
[...] Thanks for the help. I've added more info... It's impossible to accurately answer all your questions without knowing your gfxchip (lspci) or display model (hwinfo)... Grub doesn't recognize any of those commands, but from hard copy: Display adapter: NVIDIAGeForce4 8X AGP ; Display: LG W1953TV ; Pentium 4 3.0 1-Check if Plymouth is installed. If yes, purge it. Did not find it. 2-If Plymouth is not relevant, try testing changes to Grub's boot time parameters by hitting the "e" key as soon as the Grub menu appears, and remove quiet and splash from it. If it works, change /etc/default/grub to match and run grub-mkconfig. No quiet or splash in /boot/grub/grub.cfg but you give me an idea: is there a way to copy /etc/default/grub to a memory stick, edit it on another machine, then write it back? There is no mount command in the grub set.
Re: Black Screen on First Boot
Dan Norton composed on 2016-12-12 20:52 (UTC-0500): The netinst of jessie from a flash drive, graphic install, went well like it did on another PC, but on this old PC the boot after install produced a black screen. vbeinfo lists some display settings followed by "Preferred mode 1360x768", but this mode is not in the list. IIUC, vbeinfo can only ever find VESA modes supported by your video BIOS. There is no such thing as a widescreen VESA mode last I checked, so 1360x768 can't be in its list. 1360x768 is valid in other contexts, including Xorg and Wayland. video=1360x768 as a cmdline option, when the display supports it, is one such context. > There is an * beside 1024x768x32 in the list. Is that the mode used during the install? I suspect a fallback and/or preferred VESA mode. Most any more do support 1280x1024, while 1600x1200 is typically the highest VESA mode supported by a BIOS, less common than 1280x1024, and far less common than 1024x768. FWIW, 1024x768 is XGA and dates back nearly three decades. The x32 is color bits (highest number of colors modes; other options nothing, x8, x16 and others). What is the "Preferred mode 1360x768 for? Xorg (and Wayland?). Is that for the kernel? Kernel framebuffers can use it via video=. I tried to change that by doing this: grub> set root=(hd0,1) grub> set gfxpayload=1024x768 grub> linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.16.0-4-686-pae root=/dev/sda1 grub> initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.16.0-4-686-pae grub> boot But that still resulted in a black screen. What should be done instead? It's impossible to accurately answer all your questions without knowing your gfxchip (lspci) or display model (hwinfo), but try these: 1-Check if Plymouth is installed. If yes, purge it. 2-If Plymouth is not relevant, try testing changes to Grub's boot time parameters by hitting the "e" key as soon as the Grub menu appears, and remove quiet and splash from it. If it works, change /etc/default/grub to match and run grub-mkconfig. 3-same as #2, plus add vga=788 or vga=normal 4-same as #2, plus add "nomodeset" without quotes. -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/
Black Screen on First Boot
Greetings, The netinst of jessie from a flash drive, graphic install, went well like it did on another PC, but on this old PC the boot after install produced a black screen. vbeinfo lists some display settings followed by "Preferred mode 1360x768", but this mode is not in the list. There is an * beside 1024x768x32 in the list. Is that the mode used during the install? What is the "Preferred mode 1360x768" for? Is that for the kernel? I tried to change that by doing this: grub> set root=(hd0,1) grub> set gfxpayload=1024x768 grub> linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.16.0-4-686-pae root=/dev/sda1 grub> initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.16.0-4-686-pae grub> boot But that still resulted in a black screen. What should be done instead? - Dan
