Graphics error after boot menu, boot unsuccessful.

[Cactus2580]

Hello all, I have been greatly enjoying testing out the rc7 release of DSL2024! It has ran flawlessly on all the hardware I've attempted to run it on so far, however when attempting to boot it on an Acer Aspire One AO722 netbook I have ran into an interesting graphics error that prevents booting. 

The situation is as follows: 

Netbook successfully makes it to the boot menu, no issues there, but upon choosing any of the options on the boot menu it proceeds to a nice looking loading bar followed immediately after by a graphics error resembling a rainbow version of CRT TV 'snow' and boot does not proceed. "Safe video mode","virtual box video","failsafe boot", and "text" mode all have the same results. Any suggestions? 

Some more information: 

The Acer aspire one 722 supposedly has a screen resolution of 1366x768 which -IS- an option in the "F7- console" setting of the boot menu, but selecting that resolution results in "undefined video mode number: 37f" error and a selection of other resolutions. All choices result in graphics error and no boot. This netbook will run other Linux/BSD/Haiku with no graphical errors, and it would be perfect for DSL. Namely, it boots fine on other extremely cut down Linux distributions such as Tinycore, etc, can't quite figure out why this wouldn't work with DSL. 

I have also successfully ran DSL2024.RC7 on an older Acer Aspire One ZG5 (4 years older than the AO722) and it booted and ran flawlessly. 

Is this an issue of hardware compatibility, an issue of drivers, or some form of operator error? Would love to run this as the primary operating system on this netbook. 

Any help would be much appreciated!

EDIT:
After some testing, I was able to run the netbook with various resolution modes via KolibriOS, and it will run a number of display modes which are options given by the DSL2024 boot menu with no issues, yet DSL can not do this? Is there a boot flag I need to set for things to operate properly?

After some more testing, I was able to run the exact same flash drive containing DSL2024.rc7 on a Dell laptop which also has a 1366x768 resolution with no errors, runs flawlessly, resolution number provided by Conky from within DSL. This rules out some sort of corrupted data on the flash drive. What gives? The netbook has an AMD C-60 APU, integrated graphics and processor, is that the likely culprit? I will experiment further, perhaps try a different kernel?

[grindstone]

Try passing xorg=fbdev

[Cactus2580]

Try passing xorg=fbdev

Sorry for the delay in response, been busy lately.

Just tried it.
Unfortunately, this did not work either! 

I'm thinking it may just be something to do with the hardware not being compatible with whatever way the software is trying to display things, as I can't imagine something as tiny and driver-poor as KolibriOS having a driver for this relatively old netbook that a modern 700mb Linux would not. Maybe something due to the way the kernel was stripped for small size? Wonder if I can find a way to use xvesa instead of xorg, or if that would even make a difference. I can't say I've ever had the rainbow dance party screen on any distribution of any operating system I've used, ever. Really reminds one of where they're lacking in knowledge  

The netbook as is doesn't get much use, so it's not that much of an issue, but my curiosity has gotten the best of me with this one. I'll look into other boot flags, I attempted to tell the bootloader to load a few different Kernels from the several other distributions installed concurrently on the hard drive, which returned a strange error or two and didn't boot. I'm used to being able to hot swap kernels with zero issues, but I'm thinking they might not work the way I think they do on the inside. Maybe I need to go revisit the Linux from scratch documentation!  

Oh, also, used DSL2024.R7 as a rescue tool for a family member's very high spec gaming computer with MSI motherboard and all sorts of processing power and ram. It absolutely flew! 0% CPU use during most tasks, 1% on streaming video. Fixed the problem and got to teach them a little about Linux as a bonus! Strangely enough it reported only 4gb of RAM out of 32gb, 32bit limitation? Regardless, can't say enough good things about the new DSL so far. Very glad to see that the project has been brought back to life, so that people can continue to bring older equipment back to life for years to come! 

Will update with failures and possible success! Doubt this will be a common problem for others but at least if it's documented it might help someone in the future. 

Thanks for the help!

EDIT:
Have tried a number of boot flags, took a list from the AntiX/MX wiki, with zero luck thus far. Have noticed that using the F4 i915 invert option goes to a black screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left corner but will go no further. As well, appending nomodeset to the boot flags has a result that -looks- like it would work, but hangs the same way. Tried various combinations, combining multiple graphics flags seems to result in the rainbow dance party every time. Did some reading on the AntiX forums, appears that aspire one netbooks are troublesome with graphics for certain series, and may require using an older kernel? I will look into this further, seems very strange that this particular distribution won't boot on this netbook when everything else I've tried on it will, but it is about 12-13 years old and I've heard the newest Linux kernel depreciated some things. No idea. The Acer aspire one ZG5 is 4 years older and still boots fine. It's a mystery? Will keep updating.

EDIT #2:
Used Slitaz to run inxi -Fx and discovered it to be using the AMD Radeon driver whilst functioning properly. Will look into this. XDRV= Radeon?

[grindstone]

OK good work -- you're looking in the right places. Last Slitaz rolling I looked at (mid Feb) was using 3.X kernel. I would try to succeed using only Debian-based things as it may simplify life.

Would nice to know what it's seeing. inxi -Fv7 from CLI mode would be useful. I see what you mean about linux and the that model 722. Not sure this is any help, but:
https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebian.../AspireOne

Thanks for keeping us posted.

[Cactus2580]

Alright, it seems I may have found the issue, but I'm uncertain. Maybe one of you with more Linux kernel knowledge than me can answer this question, until then I'll keep plugging along at this. Listing kernel modules with LSMOD command within Slitaz shows the Radeon driver as active. Listing /lib/modules/*/modules.builtin doesn't seem to list anything with the name Radeon in the modules, yet inxi -Fx does list it. Checking inside the DSL2024.R7 filesystem, I can find 

/lib/modules/5.10.*/kernel/drivers/GPU/drm/radeon/radeon.ko

Existing, but unsure of how to select it with XDRVR= .
Does this require the full path from within the root filesystem to be specified at boot time or? Feeling stupid trying to figure this out   Will update.

EDIT:
Yes, Slitaz is using 3.10 for the version I have. Also, noted on Debian core, right now the laptop is loaded with a few highly customized versions of TinyCore, Haiku, KolibriOS, and some ISO images on loopback. Only USB device I have available right now contains DSL2024.R7 and haven't wanted to remove it just yet, but could if required. Can always DD it back.

EDIT #2:
Here is the output from the inxi -Fv7 command:
(Formatting is horrible, sorry! Piped output from the command to Nano and used leafpad to copy/paste to forums via Slitaz running on AO722, post made from Slitaz)

Password: System: Host: slitaz Kernel: 3.16.55-slitaz64 x86_64 bits: 64
compiler: gcc
v: 4.2.1 Desktop: LXDE 0.10.0 info: lxpanel wm: Openbox 3.6.1 dm:
SLiM 1.3.5 Distro: 5.0
Machine: Type: Laptop System: Acer product: AO722 v: V1.08 serial:
LUSFT022922170441C3400 Chassis: type: 10 v: 1.08 serial:
LUSFT022922170441C3400
Mobo: Acer model: JE10-BZ serial: N/A BIOS: Acer v: 1.08 date:
12/06/2011
Battery: ID-1: BAT1 charge: 0% condition: 31.1/48.8 Wh (63.8%) volts:
7.7 min: 11.1
model: Sanyo AL10B31 type: Li-ion serial: 0054 status: N/A Memory:
RAM: total: 1.69 GiB used: 492.8 MiB (28.4%) RAM Report:
missing: Required tool dmidecode not installed. Check --recommends
CPU:
Info: dual core model: AMD C-60 APU with Radeon HD Graphics bits: 64
type: MCP arch: Bobcat rev: 0 cache: L1: 128 KiB L2: 1024 KiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 998 min/max: N/A cores: 1: 998 2: 998 bogomips: 3990
Flags: 3dnowprefetch abm aperfmperf apic arat clflush cmov cmp_legacy
constant_tsc cpb cr8_legacy cx16 cx8 de extapic extd_apicid fpu fxsr
fxsr_opt ht hw_pstate ibs lahf_lm lbrv lm mca mce misalignsse mmx
mmxext monitor msr mtrr nonstop_tsc nopl npt nrip_save nx pae pat
pausefilter pdpe1gb pge pni popcnt pse pse36 rdtscp rep_good sep
skinit sse sse2 sse4a ssse3 svm svm_lock syscall tsc vme vmmcall wdt
Graphics: Device-1: AMD Wrestler [Radeon HD 6290] vendor: Acer
Incorporated ALI
driver: radeon v: kernel ports: active: LVDS-1 empty: HDMI-A-1,VGA-1
bus-ID: 00:01.0 chip-ID: 1002:9807 class-ID: 0300
Device-2: N/A type: USB driver: N/A bus-ID: 2-1:2 chip-ID: 04f2:b209
class-ID: 0e02
Display: server: X.org v: 1.12.4 driver: X: loaded: fbdev unloaded:
vesa
alternate: ati gpu: radeon display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1 Screen-1: 0
s-res: 1366x768 s-size: <missing: xdpyinfo> Monitor-1: default res:
1366x768 size: N/A Message: Unable to show GL data. Required tool
glxinfo missing.
Audio: Device-1: AMD Wrestler HDMI Audio vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI
driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:01.1 chip-ID: 1002:1314
class-ID: 0403
Device-2: AMD SBx00 Azalia vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver:
snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:14.2 chip-ID: 1002:4383 class-ID:
0403
Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k3.16.55-slitaz64 running: yes Network:
Device-1: Qualcomm Atheros AR8152 v2.0 Fast Ethernet
vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: atl1c v: 1.0.1.1-NAPI port:
2000 bus-ID: 06:00.0 chip-ID: 1969:2062 class-ID: 0200
IF: eth0 state: down mac: b8:88:e3:04:2f:e9 Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros
AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter
vendor: Lite-On driver: ath9k v: kernel bus-ID: 07:00.0 chip-ID:
168c:0032 class-ID: 0280
IF: wlan0 state: up mac: 44:6d:57:07:2e:08 IP v4: 192.168.1.17/24
scope: global broadcast: 192.168.1.255 IF-ID-1: dummy0 state: down
mac: 4a:6e:59:0b:6a:fd IF-ID-2: tunl0 state: down mac: 00:00:00:00 WAN
IP: 68.189.142.143
Bluetooth: Message: No bluetooth data found. Logical: Message: No
logical block device data found.
RAID: Message: No RAID data found. Drives: Local Storage: total: 298.09
GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model:
WD3200BPVT-22JJ5T0
size: 298.09 GiB speed: 3.0 Gb/s type: HDD rpm: 5400 serial:
WD-WXA1EB1EJZW4 rev: 1A01 scheme: MBR
Message: No optical or floppy data found. Partition: Message: No
partition data found.
Swap: ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 4.88 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%)
priority: -1
dev: /dev/sda5 label: N/A uuid: f99fb86e-7c52-44ad-9a69-74a296ebb448
ID-2: swap-2 type: zram size: 433.8 MiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority:
100
dev: /dev/zram0 ID-3: swap-3 type: zram size: 433.8 MiB used: 0 KiB
(0.0%) priority: 100
dev: /dev/zram1 Unmounted: ID-1: /dev/sda1 size: 58.59 GiB fs: ext4
label: N/A
uuid: b79dc1e5-2408-406d-b5a0-2c44f70eddf5 ID-2: /dev/sda2 size:
87.89 GiB fs: befs label: Haiku
uuid: 2776b6c262d88ecb ID-3: /dev/sda3 size: 1 KiB fs: <missing:
file> label: N/A uuid: N/A
USB: Hub-1: 1-0:1 info: Full speed or root hub ports: 5 rev: 2.0 speed:
480 Mb/s
chip-ID: 1d6b:0002 class-ID: 0900 Hub-2: 2-0:1 info: Full speed or
root hub ports: 5 rev: 2.0
speed: 480 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0002 class-ID: 0900 Device-1: 2-1:2
info: N/A type: Video driver: N/A interfaces: 2 rev: 2.0
speed: 480 Mb/s power: 500mA chip-ID: 04f2:b209 class-ID: 0e02
Hub-3: 3-0:1 info: Full speed or root hub ports: 5 rev: 1.1
speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0001 class-ID: 0900 Hub-4: 4-0:1 info:
Full speed or root hub ports: 5 rev: 1.1
speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0001 class-ID: 0900 Sensors: Missing:
Required tool sensors not installed. Check --recommends
Info: Processes: 97 Uptime: 8m wakeups: 1 Init: SysVinit v: 6 Compilers:
gcc: N/A Packages: N/A note: see --pkg Shell: sh (sudo) running-in:
xterm inxi: 3.3.13

Unfortunately, I am unable to get far enough into the boot to see what drivers DSL2024 is attempting to use upon boot which causes the rainbow dance party, as I can't get it to boot at all, even into text mode. Realistically, it's likely booting, but the screen output is entirely unusable. Seems I may need to blacklist something, then invoke only the kernel modules that are required?

Hopefully this helps, inxi -Fv seems a bit more human-readable to me. Still, drivers appear the same. This driver is available within the expanded filesystem of DSL2024.R7 when booted up on any of (3) different laptops, just not sure how to invoke from the boot menu. Will keep researching the boot flag commands and keep updated, might just be user error!

Thanks for the help!

[grindstone]

OK thanks -- I meant the inxi from DSL to see what it "thinks" the hardware is.

Edit:  Do you have any of the AntiX 23.1 runit images at all to test with?

[Cactus2580]

OK thanks -- I meant the inxi from DSL to see what it "thinks" the hardware is.

And there lies the problem! Can't get it to boot up into any mode which has usable graphics/controls on this netbook. Not even text mode, so unable to use inxi from within DSL itself.

---

OK thanks -- I meant the inxi from DSL to see what it "thinks" the hardware is.

Edit:  Do you have any of the AntiX 23.1 runit images at all to test with?

Not currently, but I will download one and see if I can get it to boot instead. Should be able to be ran from .ISO on loopback, I'd think? Otherwise can extract kernel or rewrite flash drive to find out.

EDIT #3:
Currently having connection difficulties to Antix website, connection times out every time on multiple devices including smartphone which is odd considering I visited it several times earlier... will try again a little later?

[grindstone]

Thanks and apology -- was thinking you had text. 

OK great that you are comfortable brewing a new image with changes.  Perfect. 

Re connection, you might nab the September updated i386 runit snapshot off sourceforge if that works better.

[Cactus2580]

Thanks and apology -- was thinking you had text. 

OK great that you are comfortable brewing a new image with changes.  Perfect. 

Re connection, you might nab the September updated i386 runit snapshot off sourceforge if that works better.

No need to apologize! I put plenty of words up there, can't blame you   

I am comfortable giving it a shot but the boot up sequence seems to be a bit different from what I'm used to, should be fine but may have to ask a couple questions from someone more familiar with DSL architecture. 

Also, thank you for the sourceforge link! Should help out a ton, still not working on my end, not sure why. Will update later today when I get a chance to get back to my computers. 

Thanks again!

[grindstone]

Understood.  It's always historical spelunking for typical DSL machines and seriously high-volume reading to try to save these old machines. 

Suggested AntiX full just out of laziness to see if it was firmware--that thing should have closer to the full boat but I don't have it running and was lazy.  If that worked and if you are using USB to boot, I was thinking you could fit the non-free amd firmware blob into a new image, etc. 

Code:

apt-cache policy firmware-amd-graphics :

firmware-amd-graphics:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 20230210-5
  Version table:
    20240709-2~bpo12+1 100
        100 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-backports/non-free-firmware i386 Packages
    20230210-5 500
        500 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian bookworm/non-free-firmware i386 Packages

So at least it's sitting there if you could somehow get it upped and running by vesa etc.

It'd save a ton of time to know if a 5.10.XXX kernel would boot with full firmware, etc, right--w/o having to do the exercise of adding your blob and removing something for space.  Radeon things and kernel configs were sooooo different in 3.XX times that it becomes a big dive. 

A quick grep for Radeon in the 5.10.XXX kernel config:

Code:

CONFIG_DRM_RADEON=m
CONFIG_DRM_RADEON_USERPTR=y
CONFIG_FB_RADEON=m
CONFIG_FB_RADEON_I2C=y
CONFIG_FB_RADEON_BACKLIGHT=y
# CONFIG_FB_RADEON_DEBUG is not set

The older radeonhd seems deprecated and there's no KMS anymore ( CONFIG_DRM_RADEON_KMS=y ) for 5.XX (unlike 3.X) kernels. 

Also not seeing HD 6000 series under the radeon driver (unless it's covered under 600's as some comment elsewhere)
https://www.x.org/releases/X11R7.5/doc/m...eon.4.html

What I'm starting to think, reading that same radeonhd page, is that they haven't gotten to the 6000 series (or they left it behind) in the unified radeon driver. 

"Status 09/2010: Linux distributions, including Novell's openSUSE, have now abandoned radeonhd as the default driver, instead using the radeon driver. radeon has more features, including Kernel Mode-Setting support and more 3D support, and it supports all Radeon generation from original R100 Radeons to R800 Radeons (HD 5000 series)."

Maybe I'm wrong, but my sense is that it worked fine in the radeonhd and isn't supported in the unified radeon driver, but again just a guess.  It's circular, too, because if you look on the radeon page, it refers back the the hd page for the list of features it supports on the HD series...unknown.  The xserver-xorg-video-ati is in there so either it doesn't know what it is (firmware) or it knows and it's not supported by that thing.  Will look again later but I'm out of time at the moment.