Arch Linux

AaronBP

Member

Registered: 2012-08-06

Posts: 150

Starting Setup Virtual Console

Can someone explain to me exactly what is happening during boot when this message is displayed? I've been dealing with black screen issues (I've got a missing or malformed EDID) for a long, long time, and I've learned that it seems to be caused during that event. I'll get a black screen even if I manually set video= in the kernel params, or if I don't, it will freeze at that point anyway.

This problem is frustrating as hell... I'd like to get off linux-lts.

teateawhy

Member

From: GER

Registered: 2012-03-05

Posts: 1,138

Website

Re: Starting Setup Virtual Console

You suspect 'linux-lts' to be the source of your problem, have you already tried booting with the mainline kernel?
If necessary boot from the archiso installer.

AaronBP

Member

Registered: 2012-08-06

Posts: 150

Re: Starting Setup Virtual Console

You suspect 'linux-lts' to be the source of your problem

No, that's backwards. I can get into linux-lts (only into a display manager with a custom modeline). I can't into the mainline kernel or the installer. This is a problem I've been fighting for about a year.

I thought it was caused by KMS failing because of my broken EDID. The fact that setting the mode manually will still lock up my machine has led me to think that issue is hiding something else, though. I'm not sure...

Anyway, I'd like to get more information about what is going on during the boot process. When it crashes seems to be fairly consistent.

WonderWoofy

Member

From: Los Gatos, CA

Registered: 2012-05-19

Posts: 8,414

Re: Starting Setup Virtual Console

I don't think this has anything to do with virtual console setup.  Virtual console setup is when it is starting systemd-vconsole-setup.service, and that simple applies the settings is /etc/vconsole.conf.  Do you have anything in vconsole.conf?  If you speak English and you are okay with the default font and keymap, you can actually remove /etc/vconsole.conf altogether.  I highly doubt this will solve your issues.

What kind of hardware are you running?  Since you suspect a KMS issue, what kind of graphics card sepcifically.

AaronBP

Member

Registered: 2012-08-06

Posts: 150

Re: Starting Setup Virtual Console

I'm using a Geoforce FX 5500. That uses the NV34 drivers. This monitor either isn't giving EDID info or it's incorrect. I get a lot of "EDID Checksum is invalid" errors in my logs, but I remember looking at the edid file on my filesystem once (somewhere in /proc?) and it was empty, so I'm not sure.

I also have an integrated Intel GPU. That still gets EDID errors (So it's definitely the monitor), but I can boot the machine. Most programs crash with memory allocation errors if I use it, though...