Bug 1614911 - First boot of fresh Fedora 28 install hangs when there is no user account
Summary: First boot of fresh Fedora 28 install hangs when there is no user account
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED EOL
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: gnome-initial-setup
Version: 28
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Unspecified
unspecified
unspecified
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Rui Matos
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2018-08-10 17:14 UTC by Ross Tyler
Modified: 2019-05-28 22:06 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2019-05-28 22:06:16 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)
output from "lspci" (2.90 KB, text/plain)
2018-08-10 17:14 UTC, Ross Tyler
no flags Details
output from "dmidecode" (23.10 KB, text/plain)
2018-08-10 17:18 UTC, Ross Tyler
no flags Details

Description Ross Tyler 2018-08-10 17:14:49 UTC
Created attachment 1475142 [details]
output from "lspci"

Description of problem:

The first boot of a fresh Fedora 28 installation consistently hangs on my machine (frozen black screen). 

How reproducible:

Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Perform a fresh install from Fedora Workstation x86_64 Workstation Live DVD
2. Reboot

Actual results:

UEFI will load grub and start Linux.
Screen will flash (shades of grey) a few times and go black.
Machine is unresponsive to mouse and keyboard.
Cannot switch to switch to virtual console (CTRL-ALT-F#) or reboot (CTRL-ALT-DEL).
Using grub editor to change systemd.unit to multi-user.target does not help.

Expected results:

Since anaconda does not allow one to create an initial user account and a fresh install has none, I expected to be prompted to create one on the first boot.
After this, I expected to be able to login to this account through gdm.

Additional info:

This same system has previously ran various Fedora releases (last was 27).
It currently dual boots Windows 10.

I tried updating all the installed packages before quitting anaconda from a root shell ...

        sudo -s

... in a terminal of the Fedora Live boot session:

        dnf --installroot=/mnt/sysimage update

That did not work.

From past experience, I expected that there was some sensitivity to my large screen display (LG 31MU97-B digital cinema 4K monitor) and/or graphics driver (NVIDIA CORPORATION GM107 (GeForce GTX 750)).
Based on this hunch, I was able to get something to work by replacing nouveau with the nvidia driver.
As root, before quitting anaconda:

        dnf --installroot=/mnt/sysimage update
        dnf --installroot=/mnt/sysimage install fedora-workstation-repositories
        dnf --installroot=/mnt/sysimage config-manager --set-enabled rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
        dnf --installroot=/mnt/sysimage install akmod-nvidia

I later had problems that, I thought, were related to the nvidia driver.

While struggling to get a view into the failed workings of the first boot (the local keyboard and virtual consoles were not an option), I decided that I would enable a remote login. SSH, of course, requires an account to login to so I created one for me (ross):

        systemctl --root=/mnt/sysimage enable sshd
        chroot /mnt/sysimage
                useradd ross -G wheel
                passwd ross
        exit

Surprise!
Creating the first user account before the first boot fixed the problem!
So, there must be a bug in the first boot processing that is engaged otherwise.

Comment 1 Ross Tyler 2018-08-10 17:18:36 UTC
Created attachment 1475143 [details]
output from "dmidecode"

Comment 2 Ross Tyler 2018-08-10 17:22:37 UTC
> I later had problems that, I thought, were related to the nvidia driver.

Installing the nvidia driver did get me through the first boot - including the creation of a user account.
Because of problems that, I believe, are unrelated to this issue, I decided to look for another solution.

Comment 3 Ben Cotton 2019-05-02 21:10:16 UTC
This message is a reminder that Fedora 28 is nearing its end of life.
On 2019-May-28 Fedora will stop maintaining and issuing updates for
Fedora 28. It is Fedora's policy to close all bug reports from releases
that are no longer maintained. At that time this bug will be closed as
EOL if it remains open with a Fedora 'version' of '28'.

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you
plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version' 
to a later Fedora version.

Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that we were not 
able to fix it before Fedora 28 is end of life. If you would still like 
to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it against a later version 
of Fedora, you are encouraged  change the 'version' to a later Fedora 
version prior this bug is closed as described in the policy above.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's 
lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a 
more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes 
bugs or makes them obsolete.

Comment 4 Ben Cotton 2019-05-28 22:06:16 UTC
Fedora 28 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2019-05-28. Fedora 28 is
no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further
security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug.

If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of
Fedora please feel free to reopen this bug against that version. If you
are unable to reopen this bug, please file a new report against the
current release. If you experience problems, please add a comment to this
bug.

Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.


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