Thank you for the response Moshe. i was able to succeed this morning
(using the ip command to get online via ethernet in recovery mode).
After manually configuring my networking, i'm pretty sure the package
that solved my issue (for the benefit of anyone else stumbling across
this) was linux-firmware-nonfree -- after installing it, i rebooted and
X works (and for the record, there is no /var/log/X directory on my
laptop -- must be a change with buster (or farther back?)). The file
/var/log/daemon.log seemed to have a fair amount of relevant
information in it though.
Now i'm off and running with KDE (and couldn't be happier :-])
thanks again,
~c
On Wed, 2019-08-14 at 12:47 -0400, Moshe Piekarski wrote:
>
> On 8/14/19 2:51 AM, Ernst Doubt wrote:
> > Greetings,
> >
> > i've been an avid debian user for more than 2 decades at this point
> > and just
> > bought myself my first laptop. It and buster are new enough that a
> > quick web
> > search didn't show me much. Apologies if questions of this sort
> > have been
> > asked before (i subscribed myself to the list instead of doing an
> > extensive
> > search (i did check for 'dell 3785' and none of the results seemed
> > like they
> > were particularly helpful)).
> >
> > So i managed to install successfully (the LVM level encryption
> > option seems
> > very excellent -- that's what i chose) but when i restarted, the
> > machine hung.
> > Gnome Display Manager tried to briefly start. No GUI appeared
> > though -- only a
> > momentary flicker of the screen (with no mouse pointer, only a
> > blinking
> > underscore at the top left of the display) before reverting to
> > command line
> > output. After dropping back to the command line, no login prompt is
> > available (nor am i able to access any other consoles via ctrl-alt-
> > Fn nor alt-Fn key combinations. Fortunately i am able to get a root
> > prompt in rescue mode, so i'm
> > hopeful (that with the help of some of you kind people) that i will
> > be able to
> > succeed in getting my preferred KDE desktop environment to
> > eventually load.
> >
> This sounds a lot like a graphics card bug. (see
> https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=156341 for a possibly
> related bug in nvidia cards)
> > I have several questions:
> >
> > How do i enable networking from the command line?
> Try ifconfig and dhclient. Alternatively wicd network manager has a
> curses interface.
> > i assume i can do this in
> > rescue mode?
> I think so but you may want to try booting into multi-user mode
> instead
> > i was able to connect to my wireless network during the install,
> > but if it's easier to plug in an ethernet cable, i'm happy to try
> > that instead
> > (DHCP is enabled (both wireless and ethernet end up in the same
> > network at my home), though i'm willing to set a static IP also).
> >
> > What log files should i be looking for on this newly installed
> > buster machine?
> Two good places to start would probably be /var/log/X* and
> journalctl, after setting storage to persistent (if you are using
> systemd).
> >
> > My guess is that i may have to install some proprietary non-free
> > firmware
> > packages (which i'm OK with).
> firmware-amd-graphics (from non-free) may help.
> > My quick web search indicated that ubuntu ought
> > to work, but i'd rather stick with debian (though it's possible
> > that at some
> > point in the future i'll cry uncle). Would it be helpful for me to
> > boot from a live DVD (either debian or ubuntu) in order to
> > troubleshoot this problem?
> >
> > thanks so very much for any assistance/insight anyone is able
> > to provide,
> > ~e
