Arch Linux

badhat

Member

Registered: 2011-01-30

Posts: 112

Boot to blank screen (disabling KMS does not help)

I have a system that is using the new AMD FM1 chipset (AMD A6-3650). I had the system running a while back until udev broke and I had to chroot to reinstall that package and mkinitcpio (and then run

#mkinitcpio -p linux

to get it working again. During this process, however, I decided to switch back from KDE to XFCE and I did a clean install.

Now, when I boot from a USB stick I can set "nomodeset" or "radeon.modeset=0" and the system will boot properly. If I boot from the SSD in the system, however, none of these options work. So far, I've only installed xorg and the xf86-video-ati packages (on top of base and GRUB2 for UEFI systems).

Here is my rc.conf:

#
# /etc/rc.conf - Main Configuration for Arch Linux
#
# See 'man 5 rc.conf' for more details
#

# LOCALIZATION
# ------------
HARDWARECLOCK="UTC"
TIMEZONE="America/New_York"
KEYMAP=
CONSOLEFONT=
CONSOLEMAP=
LOCALE="en_US.UTF-8"
DAEMON_LOCALE="yes"
USECOLOR="yes"

# HARDWARE
# --------
MODULES=()
USEDMRAID="no"
USEBTRFS="yes"
USELVM="no"

# NETWORKING
# ----------
HOSTNAME="chronos"

interface=eth0
address=
netmask=
broadcast=
gateway=

NETWORK_PERSIST="no"

# DAEMONS
# -------
#
DAEMONS=(ntpd syslog-ng dbus @network @crond @sshd)

and my mkinitcpio.conf:

# vim:set ft=sh
# MODULES
# The following modules are loaded before any boot hooks are
# run.  Advanced users may wish to specify all system modules
# in this array.  For instance:
#     MODULES="piix ide_disk reiserfs"
MODULES="ahci libahci ehci-hcd ohci-hcd btrfs vfat crc32c radeon"

# BINARIES
# This setting includes any additional binaries a given user may
# wish into the CPIO image.  This is run first, so it may be used to
# override the actual binaries used in a given hook.
# (Existing files are NOT overwritten if already added)
# BINARIES are dependency parsed, so you may safely ignore libraries
BINARIES=""

# FILES
# This setting is similar to BINARIES above, however, files are added
# as-is and are not parsed in any way.  This is useful for config files.
# Some users may wish to include modprobe.conf for custom module options
# like so:
#    FILES="/etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf"
FILES=""

# HOOKS
# This is the most important setting in this file.  The HOOKS control the
# modules and scripts added to the image, and what happens at boot time.
# Order is important, and it is recommended that you do not change the
# order in which HOOKS are added.  Run 'mkinitcpio -H <hook name>' for
# help on a given hook.
# 'base' is _required_ unless you know precisely what you are doing.
# 'udev' is _required_ in order to automatically load modules
# 'filesystems' is _required_ unless you specify your fs modules in MODULES
# Examples:
##   This setup specifies all modules in the MODULES setting above.
##   No raid, lvm2, or encrypted root is needed.
#    HOOKS="base"
#
##   This setup will autodetect all modules for your system and should
##   work as a sane default
#    HOOKS="base udev autodetect pata scsi sata filesystems"
#
##   This is identical to the above, except the old ide subsystem is
##   used for IDE devices instead of the new pata subsystem.
#    HOOKS="base udev autodetect ide scsi sata filesystems"
#
##   This setup will generate a 'full' image which supports most systems.
##   No autodetection is done.
#    HOOKS="base udev pata scsi sata usb filesystems"
#
##   This setup assembles a pata mdadm array with an encrypted root FS.
##   Note: See 'mkinitcpio -H mdadm' for more information on raid devices.
#    HOOKS="base udev pata mdadm encrypt filesystems"
#
##   This setup loads an lvm2 volume group on a usb device.
#    HOOKS="base udev usb lvm2 filesystems"
#
##   NOTE: If you have /usr on a separate partition, you MUST include the
#    fsck and shutdown hooks.
HOOKS="base udev fsck autodetect sata btrfs usb usbinput filesystems"

# COMPRESSION
# Use this to compress the initramfs image. With kernels earlier than
# 2.6.30, only gzip is supported, which is also the default. Newer kernels
# support gzip, bzip2 and lzma. Kernels 2.6.38 and later support xz
# compression.
#COMPRESSION="gzip"
#COMPRESSION="bzip2"
#COMPRESSION="lzma"
#COMPRESSION="xz"
#COMPRESSION="lzop"

# COMPRESSION_OPTIONS
# Additional options for the compressor
#COMPRESSION_OPTIONS=""

Most of what is inside mkinitcpio.conf was added by "hwdetect" during archboot installation. I did add the "radeon" module myself, but I've also tried booting without it and it did not help.

I'd like to add that I was planning on using the open source radeon driver. While this system will be used for gaming, I think those games are light enough to skip the catalyst driver.