Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 100788
Text console in rescue mode is foobared
Last modified: 2007-04-18 12:56:06 EDT
From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20030208 Netscape/7.02 Description of problem: Sorry I do not really know what component is responsible for drawing console text in rescue mode (must be termcap and some drivers, does this belong to the kernel?). So: When running in rescue mode, the console command line is err.. unusable. We have TERM=Linux The prompt is displayed: sh-2.05b# _ You type ls -l, there is no echo: sh-2.05b# _ Return, the files scroll along...but then the cursor does not scroll to one line past the end but is stuck at the last line, and the prompt is not redisplayed either. Like so: -rw-r--r--_ 1 root root 361 ..... (The _ is the cursor position) I can't imagine this passed testing, so it must be rare. You may want to ask me some questions... How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: As described Actual Results: Display foobared. Expected Results: Console should behave as in the good Olden Textmode Times. Additional info: I'm setting this bug 'normal' but it should actually be high. Who likes to guess at the rescue prompt?
it looks like a bug in anaconda. it assign it to correct component
Are you using a serial console? I've never seen this problem using the direct console.
No I'm using the 'real' console, i.e. screen & keyboard attached to the motherboard: I insert CD number 1, boot from it, type 'linux rescue', make it search for an installed system. The shell message appears (undereath the anaconda blue) Your system is mounted under the /mnt/sysimage directory. When finished please exit from the shell and your system will reboot. _ (Note the missing prompt) I type 'RETURN': When finished please exit from the shell and your system will reboot. sh-2.05b# _ Typing now results in ghostwriting: sh-2.05b# _ Also, history scrolling does not show anything (except that the cursor jumps around according to the length of the command that is currently (not) shown) We have: TERM=linux TERMINFO=/etc/linux-terminfo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 LANGKEY=en LC_NUMERIC=C LINGUAS=en_US.UTF-8 RUNTIMELANG=en_US.UTF-8 The graphics card is an "ATI Rage XL AGP 2X (rev 27)" The vi editor works as expected except again for its command line. Nothing is shown at all so you have to guess at the ':wq' etc. I don't know who invokes what in this case so I can only hazard the guess that the terminal emulation code must have a bug. Can I somehow set the console into the 'real' text mode instead of the 'graphics text' mode?
Oh try adding 'nofb' on the command line.
'linux rescue nofb', eh? Yes, thats's better. The command line works as expected. The 'Keep it Simple' principle at work ;-)
I guess this would be a bug in the kernel fb driver for ATI.
Possibly. I don't know how often one encounters that particular ATI chip 'out there' though, it's mounted directly on the mainboard, and it says: ATI Rage XL 215R3LASB41 DC4392 0202SS ...if that is of any use to anyone.
Oh yes, do not forget that the fb console works perfectly if you are NOT in rescue mode.
I am currently installing RH9.0 on another machine with a different graphics card (Prolink GeForce2 Ti) ... but using the same monitor... (Fujitsu-Siemens Scaleo CTM7010 flatscreen, it just has an analog input). I have the same problem. It can't be the monitor, though. What *is* this?
Thanks for the bug report. However, Red Hat no longer maintains this version of the product. Please upgrade to the latest version and open a new bug if the problem persists. The Fedora Legacy project (http://fedoralegacy.org/) maintains some older releases, and if you believe this bug is interesting to them, please report the problem in the bug tracker at: http://bugzilla.fedora.us/