[DNG] Linux kernel boot causing screen to become unreadable.
Dear All, After the modesetting issue stopped manifesting itself for some days, it started again, and now, it is almost happening with every system boot. As the sceen is completely unreadable with unaligned pixels, I tried the modprobe command without a display and paying attention not to make typing mistakes, and attempted to load the i915 kernel module. The result was, the display returned to normal, but some modules were still missing, as I couldn't connect to a wifi. My conclusion is, for some reason, these modules are failing to load. A shell script checking for i915 and r6981 and loading the missing modules can solve the issue, but others may have better solutions. Suggestions for warkarounds, are most welcome. Thanks. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] Linux kernel boot causing screen to become unreadable.
Hi! Edward Bartolo via Dng wrote: Dear All, Lately, on an HP Probook 4540s, while booting Devuan Boewulf the screen becomes completely unreabled with unsynchronized lines of pixels. I will not be surprised if this is some sick joke by HP, to force their customers to buy new, but I do not know if this is the case with what I am experiencing. The hopelessly corrupted display persists even when startx is invoked, but the screen pixels indicate X fails to load. Interesting behaviour. Do you have a ATI/AMD video card? I notice the same behaviour on NetBSD, I recently reported it. It will happen typically when there is some "system load" and both X11 as well as framebuffer console go havoc. However, if you are remotely logged in, everything works (so not "frozen") I think something goes havoc with the driver that influences the chip. A reboot fixes everything. I dmesg I see various driver related errors. I don't have the same laptop with Linux though, I have a similar amd64 + ATI laptop with Devuan and I have no issues, but it is running ascii. I fear this could be an issue related with updated drivers. Even more incentivated to procrastinate Beowulf upgrade then :) Riccardo ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Linux kernel boot causing screen to become unreadable.
Dear All, The issue seems to have been caused by the laptop's battery electronics. I removed the battery and reconfigured the kernel package to rebuild initrd.img. Rebooting did not reproduce the issue. However, I need several days to confirm the issue has truly been resolved. Thanks. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] Linux kernel boot causing screen to become unreadable.
On Fri, 23 Oct 2020 16:42:53 +0200 Edward Bartolo via Dng wrote: > Dear All, > > Lately, on an HP Probook 4540s, while booting Devuan Boewulf the > screen becomes completely unreabled with unsynchronized lines of > pixels. Which kernel? Was it recently upgraded? Which video drivers are your using? What is your display configuration? My only suggestion is to ask if you can reboot on an older kernel and achieve a working solution. Also check if your video hardware is supported by the video drivers your system is attempting to load. (Hint check /var/log/dmesg.'n' and /var/log.Xorg.1.log). IME, sometime after generally upgrading to Beowulf, the default(startup) video drivers went askew. I first noticed this when I attempted installations of Devuan beowulf onto 'clean' hardware. With one system I had to go back to Jessie to be able to do a basic server install. Since my problem was on a AMD FX motherboard with AMD video card under the "Radeon" driver, the problem may not be HP related, but rather something to do with code for AMD. In other, probably useless information, you can now upgrade kernel up to 5.8 through backports (sudo apt search linux-image-5), but I doublt if that will fix your problem. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] Linux kernel boot causing screen to become unreadable.
On Fri, 23 Oct 2020 16:42:53 +0200 Edward Bartolo via Dng wrote: > Dear All, > > Lately, on an HP Probook 4540s, while booting Devuan Boewulf the > screen becomes completely unreabled with unsynchronized lines of > pixels. I will not be surprised if this is some sick joke by HP, to > force their customers to buy new, but I do not know if this is the > case with what I am experiencing. The hopelessly corrupted display > persists even when startx is invoked, but the screen pixels indicate X > fails to load. > > The 'joke' vanishes if I try to reboot the machine without switching > off power and startx works as if nothing of the sort exists. > > I am asking but bearing in mind, the HP is not very Linux friendly and > that this issue might be some creative joke on their part. Afterall, > Aitor was right, that HP are not very Linux friendly! > > Those who have a solution please reply. I tried the 'nomodeset' kernel > parameter but it made the issue even worse. Hi Edward, The only thing I can add to the discussion is that about a decade ago I used to see this symptom (a kind of moving "tearing" of the screen to the point of unreadability) on lots of laptops. I'd need to reboot several times to get it to work properly and it was a real pain in the ass. As time went on, I stopped seeing the symptom. I think probably Linux drivers caught up to my laptop's hardware. As experiments, I'd try the following to see if they alter the symptom: * Temporarily try it booting directly to X and see if things get better * If it uses "plymouth", get rid of plymouth and see if things change * Try to see if the tearing occurs before or after the running of udev/eudev/vdev. If after, try changing some video related udev/eudev/vdev config parameters. * Boot a System Rescue CD DVD or thumbdrive, and see if the symptom still occurs. If not, you can slowly exploit the differences between System Rescue CD and your Devuan installation until you pinpoint the root cause. * Boot a live or install disk of the latest unstable Devuan and note any change in symptom. * Create a tiny partition on your computer and install a tiny Void Linux OS, then update with xbps-install -Su so you have an up to date rolling release system with pretty much the latest kernel and drivers. * Don't worry too much about the "joke" aspect of the thing. I've seen this before, on non-HP hardware. HTH, SteveT Steve Litt Autumn 2020 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times http://www.troubleshooters.com/thrive ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Linux kernel boot causing screen to become unreadable.
Dear All, Lately, on an HP Probook 4540s, while booting Devuan Boewulf the screen becomes completely unreabled with unsynchronized lines of pixels. I will not be surprised if this is some sick joke by HP, to force their customers to buy new, but I do not know if this is the case with what I am experiencing. The hopelessly corrupted display persists even when startx is invoked, but the screen pixels indicate X fails to load. The 'joke' vanishes if I try to reboot the machine without switching off power and startx works as if nothing of the sort exists. I am asking but bearing in mind, the HP is not very Linux friendly and that this issue might be some creative joke on their part. Afterall, Aitor was right, that HP are not very Linux friendly! Those who have a solution please reply. I tried the 'nomodeset' kernel parameter but it made the issue even worse. Thanks in advance. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
