Black screen without failsafeForum: User Feedback Topic: Black screen without failsafe started by: _pathos Posted by _pathos on Aug. 22 2005,21:50
I love DSL, its a great way to get introduced to linux.But... When I first booted with no options it worked fine. Now I don't even get DSL X Setup unless I use failsafe. I mucked around with the settings but does it automatically save restore information? Because everything I changed seems to be discarded. Posted by cbagger01 on Aug. 22 2005,22:09
Delete the backup.tar.gz file on your storage device (hard drive, thumb drive, etc) and your backedup files will be erased and you will be returned to the original livecd state.If you don't want to lose your backup, you can instead rename the file to something like backup.tar.gz.old and then try DSL again. If you like, you can "undo" your changes by merely renaming the file back to "backup.tar.gz" Posted by _pathos on Aug. 23 2005,05:25
Can't find anything, which partition would it normally use?Could the unformatted or NTFS drive confuse it? hda1 : 40gb NTFS (WinXP) hdb1 : 32gb unformatted hdb2 : 32gb FAT32 hdb3 : 10gb FAT32 EDIT: The DSL X Setup doesn't even show when booting with boot: vga=normal boot: vga=7?? Posted by NotTheMama on Aug. 23 2005,06:43
Try to run dsl using dsl 2. This will not start X. At the prompt you can run xsetup.sh to reconfigure you're .xserverrc file in /home/dsl.When you reboot the new version should be backupped in backup.tar.gz. Normally the /home/dsl is listed in the .filetool.lst in /home/dsl. This file contains the files/dirs to backup. If you want to start cleanly. Rename backup.tar.gz. Is probably is located in the root of the hdb2 or hdb3. (During boot a script looks for backup.tar.gz on 1 of the harddisks I think even though you didn't specify that is should....) THT., Remco Posted by cbagger01 on Aug. 23 2005,16:11
The only two places where it could reside is/mnt/hdb2 or /mnt/hdb3 DSL can't write to the other ones. Posted by _pathos on Aug. 23 2005,22:37
Thanks for all the advice.Can't find anything. Is it possible that it attempts to use the unformatted drive? modifications I made to .filetool.lst don't seem to be there but .filetool.lst probably reverts to its initial state in failsafe mode. I have an FX5200 and a S3 Virge DX and the black screen happens on both cards. Posted by NotTheMama on Aug. 24 2005,06:45
Dit you mount the drives...If not: mount /mnt/hdb2 and mount /mnt/hdb3 When everything is mounted: find / -name "backup.tar.gz" -type f HTH., Remco Posted by _pathos on Aug. 26 2005,01:39
It should be visible in windows shouldn't it? Because I can't find it.boot: dsl norestore has no effect. its something to do with DSL X SETUP or something. Posted by cbagger01 on Aug. 26 2005,20:24
Well if it still happens with "norestore" then you can eliminate a backup file being the source of the problem. What else has changed since then?Also, you can force the xsetup prompts by booting with: dsl xsetup Posted by _pathos on Aug. 28 2005,10:29
nothing had changed and I think I've already tried that.Could restarting your computer all the time while DSL is running be dangerous? Posted by NotTheMama on Aug. 29 2005,06:37
I think this is only the case of not cleanly rebooting.So when your machine really crashed and you need to push the reset/power button to restart the machine. In this case files and filesystems can be corrupt. I've seen messages that e2fsck needed to be run on (linux)filesystems due because filesystems weren't cleanly unmounted. Normally a e2fsck solves the problems for the filesystem. Some files, which were written during the crash could be corrupted. Normally you should see an error during boot if you need to run e2fsck somewhere at the end... Boot with a LiveCD and "e2fsck /dev/(linux filesystem)". I do not think you need to run this command on a fat32/ntfs filesystem. Posted by _pathos on Aug. 29 2005,07:46
It never crashes, just gives black screen so I can't shut down cleanly.I'll give it another go. Posted by NotTheMama on Aug. 29 2005,08:37
If you do not shutdown/reboot cleanly, so filesystems are unmounted, it could lead to problems...If you use frugal there should not be too many problems.. There is nothing written on disk... On hd-installs there could be problems like the things I mentioned earlier.. Can you get to another console. I do not know the right combination, but it is something combination of CRTL and/or ALT and/or SHIFT with the F1 or 1 button. Normally you have a X and a ascii console... The ascii console is the one you see while booting. Some errors can be seen there.. Also an CRTL^C can be used to exit X. Posted by _pathos on Aug. 31 2005,11:32
Found the problem.Without failsafe DSL tries to use my PCI gfx card. But I have set the agp as the primary in the bios so the PCI card doesn't work (only works when its set to primary). I can boot fine when I set the PCI to primary in bios and disable agp. Is it the kernel that tries to use the PCI as primary? Posted by NotTheMama on Aug. 31 2005,14:08
ok... Happy you found the problem...Something that springs to mind is the noagp option for starting. Are you using a LiveCD, Frugal or hd install? Is /etc/init.d/knoppix-autoconfig the noagp option is checked. The code which is run if it is not found is:
stringinfile does a grep on AGP in /proc/pci and returns 0 if it is found You might want to check AGP in /proc/pci You might also want to check the other command: "modprobe agpgart" and "modprobe agpgart agp_try_unsupported=1". Maybe they give errors.... What failsafe exaclty does I do not know.... Posted by _pathos on Sep. 02 2005,00:55
LiveCD, just learning the ropes at the moment.Don't want to disable AGP, I can do that in the boot options. What I don't want is DSL trying to use my PCI when the AGP has been set to primary in the bios. Posted by _pathos on Sep. 07 2005,11:39
Well I've finally got adsl so I'll be able to get another distro off the net.I'm afraid I don't have much use for DSL, I'll definitely keep it tho. but I really love it, its just how linux should be; simple, stable, and fast. Planning on getting debian and maybe vector (I like speed) for programming/homework. I'll keep XP for games. See ya all later, I'm a second year CS student and hope to contribute to open source myself one day. |