Can't Install/Boot Trisquel
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I have been interested in trying Trisquel, but I can't seem to get it to work.
I have burned the "trisquel_6.0_amd64.iso" to a disc and checked its integrity. When I boot it, I am presented with the Live CD menu, but when choosing to try Trisquel, all I get is the blinking cursor (I left it alone long enough to drive to lunch and back, with no change). Checking the troubleshooting section of the online manual, I apply some of the options given, and that gets me into the Live trial. But when I install Trisquel, my computer freezes after I log in, before the desktop has a chance to come up.
This is the setup I'm working with:
AMD FX(tm)-6100 Six Core Processor x 3
4GB RAM
GeForce GTX 560 Ti
Current disk partitions:
hp ssd v300a
-sda1 (Windows)
-sda2 (Extended Partition)
---sda3 (/boot)
---sda5 (Linux Mint)
---sda6 (empty partition for playing around with other distros)
HDD
-sdb1 (Windows/Linux shared data)
-sdb2 (Extended Partition)
---sdb5 (/home)
---sdb6 (swap)
Is there something in my computer's setup that is preventing me from being able to properly live boot and install Trisquel? I'd really like to try it out.
What options allowed you to boot the live cd? Those possibly need to be appended to the kernel parameters of the install in grub.
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acpi=off will let me boot into the Live CD. I didn't think I'd be able to add that to the GRUB thing after install since I couldn't boot, but duh, I should be able to do that.
In the Live CD, my desktop isn't rendered correctly--the monitor is detected as a "laptop" with the wrong resolution (1280x1024 instead of the native 1920x1080). Is this a problem that will transfer over to the full install of the OS, and is there a way to fix it?
I am not sure but the installer may set the same options as those used when booting the Live CD. If it is not the case, you can always boot the Live CD again and 'chroot' in the installed system to modify GRUB's configuration. In fact, there exists other ways to do it.
You'll have to find out about the reso if you manage to login. The free stack for nvidia cards, nouveau, is a reverse engineered, 3rd party solution. It does not work well with all nvidia cards. Nvidia provides no free drivers nor firmwares... The situation is less than optimal.
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Well, I was able to use the "e" editing feature of GRUB to temporarily append "acpi=off" to my Trisquel boot and get in. Resolution is still bad, but everything else seemed to work. I could not, however, find anything named "menu.lst" in the GRUB folder on any of my OS drives or the /boot partition. I can't make the boot change permanent. But if I can't fix the resolution problem, it won't matter much anyway.
You can "make the boot change permanent". Edit /etc/default/grub with administrative rights:
$ sudo gedit /etc/default/grub
Add "acpi=off" to the variable GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX. The line becomes:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="acpi=off"
Save and quit. Finally execute the following command for the change to be effective:
$ sudo update-grub
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Thanks, I'll give that a try tonight and see what comes of it!
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Well, no dice. The change to the grub file makes no difference, even after updating grub.
I keep having more problems. I tried to update the kernel to 3.8, went through all the steps in the tutorial and everything seemed to go well, but I still only have the option to boot into 3.2.
I also discovered that, though I have the nouveau driver installed, Trisquel is using Vesa in fallback mode, and I can't figure out how to change it. I do have the resolution problem in gNewSense as well (I'm trying out both).
Well, that is weird. Adding "acpi=off" to the variable GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX should add this option when booting a Linux kernel. This is what you told us you manually do to get the kernel booting.
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Went back and checked to make sure it was there, and it was. Still can't get into Trisquel without hitting "e" and manually adding "acpi=off" to the second-to-last line provided.
Still can't get the kernel to update either. Everything connected to 3.10.7 is installed in synaptic (but there's nothing with "generic" attached to it), but the only option when I boot is 3.2.
Can't get nouveau to load either, and stuck in Vesa fallback.
I know I'm still fairly new to Linux, but I can't figure out why none of this works.
EDIT: Tried a reinstall of Trisquel using the text installer, and got through the installation with no problem. Tried to boot into the OS, same problem. Updated the GRUB file as directed using another OS (I made sure the file I was updating was Trisquel's, not that OS's). Still nothing.
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Some success! Though it didn't seem to work before, after I used another OS to access and edit Trisquel's grub file (adding acpi=off actually to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT, not GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX, on a suggestion from another posting somewhere else), and after I used the "e" method to boot into Trisquel, I used Trisquel to update-grub, and now I'm finally able to boot into Trisquel without problems. So that problem is solved!
Now if I could just get the kernel updated and figure out my resolution problem, I'll be all set. Nouveau works flawlessly with my other OS, so I wonder why it doens't work in Trisquel.
How exactly did you try to update the kernel?
It then looks like those two variables are not used as detailed in the documentation (info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'):
`GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX'
Command-line arguments to add to menu entries for the Linux kernel.
`GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT'
Unless `GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY' is set to `true', two menu entries
will be generated for each Linux kernel: one default entry and one
entry for recovery mode. This option lists command-line arguments
to add only to the default menu entry, after those listed in
`GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX'.
Anyway. I am glad you can now normally boot from GRUB. As for updating the kernel, there are two simple solutions. You can either opt for the 3.5 version, which is directly available in Trisquel 6.0's repository (install the package named "linux-generic-lts-belenos") or constantly stick to the latest version by adding jxself's repository for Linux-libre (follow this documentation). Of course, the latter option is somewhat more dangerous for the stability of your system. Always keep an older working kernel in parallel.
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First, you all have been enormously helpful so far.
Doing some more experimentation, it seems that indeed it is GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX that needs "acpi=off" added to it. I may have had another problem because it seems that Trisquel didn't want to load correctly if I didn't use Trisquel's GRUB bootloader. If I used my other OS's GRUB, then I had to manually append "acpi=off" each time I booted up, as the GRUB file didn't seem to make a difference no matter what. Once I restored Trisquel's own GRUB, it seems to work alright.
Second, I was able to update my kernel to 3.5--I had previously tried the method in the documentation you linked to, but it didn't seem to work. Installing the package you mentioned for 3.5 worked flawlessly, and Trisquel now boots with the 3.5 image.
That's two of my three problems solved! The only thing I have left is this driver issue.
Taking a look at /var/log/Xorg.0.log may reveal interesting things such as the reason why X falls back to the vesa driver.
You do not have a file /etc/X11/xorg.conf, do you?
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I have no idea what is and what is not useful in Xorg.0.log, but I'll put it up here in case someone else can understand it. It looks like Xorg can properly identify my monitor and the modes it supports, but it still loads a VESA driver that doesn't seem to
Strangely enough, I DO have a xorg.conf file. I don't remember that being the case before my reinstall, because I remember trying to find a proper way to create one and not succeeding. Maybe it came as part of the kernel upgrade, or somewhere else in the automatic updates I did. I don't know where it came from. All it says is this:
Section "Device"
Identifier "Default"
Option "GLXVBlank" "on"
EndSection
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Xorg.0.log_.txt | 72.89 KB |
Try to move Xorg's configuration so that it is not considered:
$ sudo mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak
You can then shutdown and restart the graphical connection (just quitting the graphical session) and see if "nouveau" is used.
I will take a look at your X logs now.
Moving Xorg's configuration must not change anything (but you should not have that file anyway). I believe the "nouveau" driver in Linux-libre 3.5 does not handle the GTX 500 series:
[ 8.211] (II) NOUVEAU driver Date: Wed Nov 30 18:56:54 2011 +0100
[ 8.211] (II) NOUVEAU driver for NVIDIA chipset families :
[ 8.212] RIVA TNT (NV04)
[ 8.212] RIVA TNT2 (NV05)
[ 8.212] GeForce 256 (NV10)
[ 8.212] GeForce 2 (NV11, NV15)
[ 8.212] GeForce 4MX (NV17, NV18)
[ 8.212] GeForce 3 (NV20)
[ 8.212] GeForce 4Ti (NV25, NV28)
[ 8.212] GeForce FX (NV3x)
[ 8.212] GeForce 6 (NV4x)
[ 8.212] GeForce 7 (G7x)
[ 8.212] GeForce 8 (G8x)
[ 8.212] GeForce GTX 200 (NVA0)
[ 8.212] GeForce GTX 400 (NVC0)
You therefore need to install a more recent kernel.
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I can now report complete success! Thank to your help and some experimentation (and lots of reinstalls), I finally nailed down exactly what I needed to do in order to get Trisquel to install and boot on my system with no problems.
1. Boot up Live CD. "Try Trisquel without Installing", with the F6 "acpi=off" option enabled.
2. Use System Settings -> GParted to partition and format a logical partition for Trisquel.
3. Install Trisquel to this partition, with no separate /boot or /home partitions.
4. Before rebooting, root the new Trisquel file system as described here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/145241/how-do-i-run-update-grub-from-a-livecd.
5. Update Trisquel's GRUB file in the terminal with "sudo nano /etc/default/grub". Add acpi=off to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX, save and close, and update grub with "sudo update-grub".
6. Unmount Trisquel's file system and reboot into the new Trisquel installation.
7. Run System Settings -> Update Manager and reboot as instructed.
8. After rebooting, run System Settings -> Synaptic Manager and install "linux-generic-lts-belenos". Update GRUB. Reboot and ensure that that the GRUB Menu indicates that Trisquel is now using the 3.5 kernel (I did this mostly to make sure that when I updated to the latest kernel, I would actually boot into it).
7. Log in to Trisquel, and follow the instructions at "https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/update-linux-libre-kernel" to update to the latest kernel.
8. IMPORTANT: Re-edit the GRUB file and REMOVE "acpi=off". I found that, even after updating my linux kernel, if I still ran with acpi=off, Trisquel would boot into Fallback mode with the VESA driver, severely distoring my display.
9. Update GRUB again, then reboot.
10. Enjoy a fully functional, booting, updated and properly-dsiplaying Trisquel 6.0 system!
That is very nice of you to report everything you did to get Trisquel working on your computer. However, I believe some of the steps are useless (e.g., installing Linux-libre 3.5 as an intermediary stage between the default kernel and the newest one). Better, I am pretty sure the newest kernel can be installed from the chroot environment (jxself?):
- Boot up Live system. "Try Trisquel without Installing", with the F6 "acpi=off" option enabled.
- Install Trisquel (the default partitioning scheme is OK).
- Once the installation over, make sure you have an Internet connection (plug an Ethernet cable if necessary) and chroot into the new Trisquel system as described here (until the chroot command): http://askubuntu.com/questions/145241/how-do-i-run-update-grub-from-a-livecd
- echo "http://linux-libre.fsfla.org/pub/linux-libre/freesh/ freesh main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list
- wget http://linux-libre.fsfla.org/pub/linux-libre/freesh/archive-key.asc
- sudo apt-key add archive-key.asc
- sudo apt-get update
- sudo apt-get install linux-libre64 (linux-libre32 if the 32 bit system was installed)
- sudo update-grub
- Reboot and enjoy!
I even wonder if it is necessary to execute "sudo update-grub" (however, it certainly does not hurt). The Trisquel manual say it is but it may be wrong: I would expect the linux-libre64 package to automatically run this command in a post-install script. Jxself?
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Thanks for simplifying that--I still consider myself a linux newbie, and go about things in clunky ways. And the only reason I installed 3.5 was because in some of my earlier attempts, trying to update to the latest kernel never worked--I'd still end up in 3.2. Installing 3.5 was just my way of testing whether I could boot into another kernel, and to make sure I had a "stable" kernel to use in case the latest one ended up being unstable.