Bug 787485 - Cannot boot Fedora 16 without nomodeset kernel parameter
Summary: Cannot boot Fedora 16 without nomodeset kernel parameter
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: gdm
Version: 16
Hardware: x86_64
OS: Unspecified
unspecified
high
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Ray Strode [halfline]
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2012-02-05 16:49 UTC by Mark Lambert
Modified: 2013-02-13 22:01 UTC (History)
10 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of: 684898
Environment:
Last Closed: 2013-02-13 22:01:13 UTC
Type: ---
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)
gdm log when NOT using 'nomodeset' (19.07 KB, text/plain)
2012-02-05 16:49 UTC, Mark Lambert
no flags Details
Output of lsinitrd /boot/initramfs-3.2.3-2.fc16.x86_64.img (181.29 KB, text/plain)
2012-02-06 14:06 UTC, Mark Lambert
no flags Details

Description Mark Lambert 2012-02-05 16:49:09 UTC
Created attachment 559473 [details]
gdm log when NOT using 'nomodeset'

+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #684898 +++

Description of problem:
When plymouth starts and I switch it off with Escape, the upper left corner of the screen (about 1/4 of the area) is white, the rest black, and nothing happens.

If I boot with the "quiet" kernel option turned
off, I see the kernel boot, but after "startyng plymouth demon" nothing more
happens (this is the same with the alpha and the 03-12 nightly).

The machine is a subnotebook, so I (have to) boot from USB-stick (created with liveusb-creator on F14).

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
F15 alpha, but desktop-i386-20110312.01.iso also fails.

How reproducible:
Boot F15 from USB stick.
  
Actual results:
Boot seems to hang.

Expected results:
F15 should boot up normally, with output from the init scripts, and eventually an X server.

--- Additional comment from u.hobelmann on 2011-03-26 04:48:45 EDT ---

I tried booting the latest Ubuntu alpha from stick and that also failed, and because everybody else seems to be doing fine, I suspected the stick to be broken, but reading/writing files works fine, and Fedora 14-Live also boots fine from the stick.

Since Ubuntu and Fedora use different init systems now, that only leaves the new kernel or Plymouth (which Ubuntu now also uses, AFAIK). The latest Fedora nightly (2011-03-24) also did not boot, same problem.

Is there any additional information I can provide?

--- Additional comment from u.hobelmann on 2011-03-26 16:08:02 EDT ---

Ok, this seems to be "only" a LiveUSB-issue. I took my system to F15 by manually upgrading with yum, and it seems to be running quite well for the alpha status.

--- Additional comment from u.hobelmann on 2011-04-09 16:20:54 EDT ---

Beta RC2 doesn't boot from USB, either. The kernel and plymouth start and that's it.

--- Additional comment from u.hobelmann on 2011-08-27 09:32:56 EDT ---

F16 Alpha also doesn't boot from USB... Seems like the Linux world is becoming closed to me. As recent Ubuntu releases had the same problem, it's probably in the kernel, and since apparrently I'm the only one with this problem, I'm not expecting future releases to be much different.

--- Additional comment from u.hobelmann on 2011-08-27 12:27:52 EDT ---

Correction: the latest Ubuntu nightly iso DOES boot from USB, so they must have fixed something in Plymouth or the kernel. Normally, I'd expect Fedora to get bugfixes faster than Ubuntu, so probably they fixed something downstream.

--- Additional comment from ekanter on 2011-09-05 21:51:47 EDT ---

Image from http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/releases/test/16-Alpha/Fedora/i386/os/images/boot.iso does not boot from USB stick at all.

Latest as of now from http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/development/16/i386/os/images/boot.iso boots into menu then:

1. default graphical install fails with an error, image attached.
2. rescue mode works fine.

--- Additional comment from ekanter on 2011-09-05 21:54:39 EDT ---

Created attachment 521557 [details]
screenshot for comment #6

--- Additional comment from ekanter on 2011-09-06 21:55:14 EDT ---

Looks like USB has nothing to do with this F16 problem. Same when using physical CDROM drive.

--- Additional comment from rhttrindade on 2011-09-29 12:45:07 EDT ---

I have used Fedora-16-Alpha-i686-Live-XFCE on 32-bit Intel Centrino and after intallation even rescue mode failed. After a closer look I saw that the boot dir was completely empty. I will try the new image thought.

--- Additional comment from lambertm.ca on 2012-02-05 11:21:57 EST ---

After upgrade to FC16 x64 (from F15 x64 using pre-upgrade) system booted fine.

Now goes to black screen.  Removed quiet and last message seen on screen seems to be the line "Starting Plymouth Login" or close to that.  Not sure what updates caused this.

Currently ONLY using nomodeset allows boot.  Intel 945GM chipset on a Toshiba Satellite P200 notebook.

Not sure what caused this, not sure what to provide that may help debug.  Booting from F16 DVD does not work either. (Will with nomodeset).

Note:  Also downgraded recent updates, and even disabled update repos and typed 'sudo yum distribution-synchronization' causing lots of downgrades.  Expected that this would fix the issue - nope.  Re-enabled Updates (Fedora, RPMFusion non-free/free updates) and allowed updating again.  No luck.

Please - this has been a nuisance and becoming a big issue as cannot use some apps effectively because screen resolution stuck.  

Gnome control center - Displays:  "Unknown".  Detect Displays button does nothing. (Assume because of nomodeset).

Gnome has also fallen back to the non-enhanced experience (which I had finally gotten so used to that I want it back lol).

Thanks

Comment 1 Mark Lambert 2012-02-05 16:59:46 UTC
Cloned to a new bug as not only related to USB booting - this is an installed system that worked fine as F15, F16 for a few days after initial upgrade F15->F16 and THEN stopped booting properly.

Attached the :0.gdm.1.log (when not using nomodeset).  

Noticed NO Xorg.?.log created in this case - so the boot process seem to fail before X becomes involved.  Scanning rest of logs and will hopefully find something further useful to attach.

Comment 2 Mark Lambert 2012-02-05 17:07:24 UTC
I completed viewing system logs - oddly, /var/log/messages has no entries from the boot attempt (replaced nomodeset with video=i915).  Only the successful boots (because of nomodeset) show.  Nothing else of interest in any log.  

So...is this a driver issue? Kernel issue?  DRM issue? X11 issue? Plymouth?

I have more questions now than when I began trying to figure this out.  The worst part is...FC16 worked *fine* before.  Only thing I cannot downgrade is the kernel at this point.  I am stuck with 3.2.2-1 until an update comes down.

Hoping one does, and cures this - I will update this bug either way with results after next kernel update.

Comment 3 Mark Lambert 2012-02-05 17:28:01 UTC
Probably my last input for today...however interesting results whether very useful or not - remains to be seen.

Booted from DVD again...same result. (nomodeset will allow boot)
Created LiveUSB and booted...same result. (nomodeset will allow boot).

On both media...screen turns to white background...then a message (as much as I could read in the short time displayed)..."Unable to fully initialize daemon ... no such file or directory" then straight to blank screen.  Not just blank actually - if power indicators didn't show machine powered on it would look powered-down.

Comment 4 C. M. Trindade 2012-02-06 13:48:05 UTC
Mark, since you are not on the CC List for bug 684898 I will post this here also.

There is a difference between the F16 USB and the DVD installation. I found
this out when I tried to reinstall F16 with the DVD and the system did not
detect it. At the time I probably removed the boot dir completely to get the
DVD going. When I got to the login screen I could see that it looked different.

Comment 5 Mark Lambert 2012-02-06 14:04:55 UTC
Update to 3.2.3-2 kernel released and problem still occurs.

Since I upgraded using pre-upgrade tool...then had this issue start I have tested with both DVD and USB-stick media from an installation DVD image.  I am now downloading "Live" images (Gnome and KDE) and will post my results later on today.

I am thinking this is much like an issue around FC10 I believe it was where the intel_drv.ko module couldn't load properly because the framebuffer driver (fbcon back then wasn't it?) hadn't been loaded first.  Now I think it is supposed to be inteldrmfb (which is created by fbcon) .... I now somewhere in old logs I saw /dev/fb0 :  no such device or something like that.

Before the screen blanks I see something about Plymouth...then [drm]<something..something...> - goes blank too quickly to catch and at this point the system is not yet logging.

Will d/l both these images, try one by one on usb stick and see what happens.

Somehow I think this is the fault of the framebuffer driver not being loaded when it should.  

I am also attaching  the output of lsinitrd on my current kernel initramfs file.

Comment 6 Mark Lambert 2012-02-06 14:06:11 UTC
Created attachment 559637 [details]
Output of lsinitrd /boot/initramfs-3.2.3-2.fc16.x86_64.img

Comment 7 Fedora End Of Life 2013-01-16 17:24:02 UTC
This message is a reminder that Fedora 16 is nearing its end of life.
Approximately 4 (four) weeks from now Fedora will stop maintaining
and issuing updates for Fedora 16. 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 WONTFIX if it remains open with a Fedora 
'version' of '16'.

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Comment 8 Fedora End Of Life 2013-02-13 22:01:20 UTC
Fedora 16 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2013-02-12. Fedora 16 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.

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