Trisquel Failing to Boot
Today my Trisquel 5.5 system is failing to boot. I suspect it was after updates installed last night.
I've attempted to go back through previous kernels to boot with varying success; With one of the previous kernels it allowed me to log in, and then crashed.
I would suspect a hardware fault but I also have debian installed on the same machine (the same HDD, in fact) and that boots and operates correctly.
I wish I could give more information but I can't see the boot text (my monitor goes into sleep during boot - a longstanding issue).
How can I force the boot to show text in a known resolution (rather than a splash) so I can see what is going on?
Thanks.
> I wish I could give more information but I can't see the boot text (my
> monitor goes into sleep during boot - a longstanding issue).
>
> How can I force the boot to show text in a known resolution (rather
> than a splash) so I can see what is going on?
Edit /etc/default/grub, remove "splash" from GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT.
Maybe try adding "nomodeset" to that variable if you use a Radeon GPU,
these often have such problems (with other GPUs it would force using the
less capable vesa X driver, radeon still works without KMS). Run
"update-grub" after the change and reboot.
Before I posted this I removed "splash" from /boot/grub/grub.cfg directly, I imagine this has the same effect. You'll have to forgive my ignorance with grub, I've never fiddled with it much.
I got the same problem (monitor going to sleep). It is not a Radeon.
> I got the same problem (monitor going to sleep). It is not a Radeon.
What is it? (lspci -nn | grep VGA should show it)
Is the monitor CRT or is it connected via a cable extender? This might
be a DDC problem, although I don't know why it would depend on the
kernel version.
Disabling framebuffer modules might help, I don't know how to do it
(unless nomodeset does it).
Or maybe it's not related to graphics.
Can you access the machine from network? dmesg output of the kernel
making it sleep would probably help.
TFT monitor, connected over the VGA port.
00:0d.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: nVidia Corporation C61 [GeForce 7025 / nForce 630a] [10de:03d6] (rev a2)
The grub configuration allows me to boot trisquel and debian, the trisquel entry looks like this:
menuentry 'Trisquel GNU/Linux, with Linux-Libre 3.0.0-22-generic-pae' --class trisquel --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
recordfail
set gfxpayload=$linux_gfx_mode
insmod gzio
insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,msdos6)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root f4e5528f-9065-4a16-8817-0956719dd83e
linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-22-generic-pae root=UUID=f4e5528f-9065-4a16-8817-0956719dd83e ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.0.0-22-generic-pae
}
This makes my monitor sleep until the trisquel login manager (well, it did when it could boot).
The debian entry:
menuentry "Debian GNU/Linux, with Linux 2.6.32-5-686 (on /dev/sda1)" --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,msdos1)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 5778801d-a00d-42c4-8dbd-bfd816be6950
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-5-686 root=UUID=5778801d-a00d-42c4-8dbd-bfd816be6950 ro quiet
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-5-686
}
*does* show all the boot text correctly until the debian login manager.
Any suggestions to get the trisquel boot look the same as the debian boot would be appreciated. Then I can tackle my boot issue.
> This makes my monitor sleep until the trisquel login manager (well, it
> did when it could boot).
"until" means it works ok since showing the login manager?
Try adding "nomodeset" to the kernel arguments, it will disable kernel
modesetting and should show something different (e.g. a VGA terminal).
I don't know if the 2.6.32 in Debian supports KMS for this GPU. Maybe
try a newer kernel for Trisquel (e.g. from http://jxself.org/linux-libre/)?
My computer now boots trisquel again! /boot partition was corrupt and fsck fixed it (I don't know if the corruption was the cause of my problem or just a side effect).
My second, and lesser problem of not being able to see the boot process I would still like to get fixed. I'll keep playing around with the grub config.
Thank you for your assistance.
Try adding GRUB_TERMINAL=console to /etc/default/grub.
(and sudo update-grub)