Arch Linux

djump

Member

Registered: 2010-10-11

Posts: 4

Dell Latitute E6410 w/ Arch 2010.05 Pacman -Syu breaks install

Hi All,
New to the forum but an intermediate user of linux.
I've been meaning to run Arch as my primary flavor of linux but am having a problem with pacman when it updates.

Machine: Dell Latitute E6410, core i7 (don't know exact model but 4 processor one), 8 gigs of ram, Nvidia NVS 3100, Intel Wireless
Arch Install: 2010.05

I follow the Beginner's install guide and can get all the way to the Update System part and thats where everything craps out.
Wireless is even working at this point which amazes me.

In any case, after running " pacman -Syu" I reboot the system and after GRUB the screen goes all wonky. It pixelates over and goes to a gray or black screen.

Can anybody help out?
I suppose I can run the system without updating, but I would like to know which particular package is doing this.
Also, if I install something that upgrades one of these problem packages

Searching through the forums, I know folks have this machine, but was wondering how they got it up and running.
Thanks in advance.

lolilolicon

Member

Registered: 2009-03-05

Posts: 1,722

Re: Dell Latitute E6410 w/ Arch 2010.05 Pacman -Syu breaks install

What exactly did you install on your system? Did you only did a '-Syu' after the base install?
Are you booting into X or not? If you are, add 'single' to the kernel line in your grub menu entry, so you can boot into "safe mode".
Have you installed the the 'nvidia' package? I think your card will work with this driver.

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djump

Member

Registered: 2010-10-11

Posts: 4

Re: Dell Latitute E6410 w/ Arch 2010.05 Pacman -Syu breaks install

@lolilolicon

I haven't "installed" anything on the system thus far.
I've been following the beginner's guide.

I'm basically at the point where I can boot into the system with a root account.
According to the guide, the next step is to update pacman.

I rankmirrors and then run "pacman -Syu".

I'm not at the point to install X yet.

lolilolicon

Member

Registered: 2009-03-05

Posts: 1,722

Re: Dell Latitute E6410 w/ Arch 2010.05 Pacman -Syu breaks install

Alright. That should simplify things.
Can you boot into your system now? You should be able to boot into single mode at least.
Paste your rc.conf, errors.log and messages.log so we have more info to work on.
In the mean time, try installing nvidia, see if that helps.

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djump

Member

Registered: 2010-10-11

Posts: 4

Re: Dell Latitute E6410 w/ Arch 2010.05 Pacman -Syu breaks install

Hey Lolilolocon, sorry for the delay in response.

I tried going into the Fallback Mode and 1 of two things happen.

The majority of the time, the screen goes banks and pixelates over or goes all wonky.

The other times, it looks like Arch is loading. It gets to processing udev events and it says busy and then it hangs and sometimes the screen pixelates over.

I'm afraid I have to give up trying since this is a work machine and I have to get it up and running.

As unfortunate as it is I might have to resort to using Debian for now.

My guess is that either the wireless drivers or the kernel update is causing this problem. The hardware I have is fairly new and Arch may not be able to deal with it. I might have to wait for the next release. What a bummer.

Thanks though for your effort.

djump

Member

Registered: 2010-10-11

Posts: 4

Re: Dell Latitute E6410 w/ Arch 2010.05 Pacman -Syu breaks install

Going to bump this since I managed to get debian running on the laptop.
I believe I know how to solve this for Arch as well.

To ensure a successful boot, I edited the boot parameter to have "nomodeset"
This will cause the linux image to boot using only the VESA driver. I believe the issue is caused by the nvidia driver trying to load itself which the console is still active.

So...in short boot into the installer using the "nomodeset" parameter.
Install as usual.

After installation is complete. I recommend installing the nvidia driver (debian packages are nvidia-xconfig, nvidia-kernel-common and module-assistant)
Then install the wifi driver "iwlwifi" and the network card driver (e1000e, I believe)

Here is the link to the guy who gave very good instructions so I'm spreading the wealth here. (http://www.robo47.net/blog/197-Setting- … 80-Display)

The same steps "should" work for Arch. At some point down the road I may retry with Arch but for now. This got me up and going without a hitch now.

Good luck, hope this helps.