Arch Linux

paneves

Member

Registered: 2016-01-17

Posts: 28

[WORKED AROUND] Boot hangs with Linux but not with Linux-lts

Hi:

Since last July, I've been having problems to boot using Linux kernel on my machine (Intel i7-5775C CPU). I can boot fine with Linux-lts but boot hangs with Linux.
If I modify the GRUB cmd line to increase verbosity, the last message I see is "fb0: switching to inteldrmfb from EFI VGA".

If I include the "nomodeset" parameter it boots fine, although it cannot start SDDM. I found on another thread that I could include the parameter "intel_iommu=on", but nothing changes.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance:

Pedro

Last edited by paneves (2020-09-08 08:51:30)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,707

Re: [WORKED AROUND] Boot hangs with Linux but not with Linux-lts

Enable early KMS for the i915 module: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ke … _KMS_start

In any case can you boot to a terminal? Boot with systemd.unit=multi-user.target as a kernel parameter.

A bit more from the left field if the above doesn't help:

Did you/do you enable i915's fastboot parameter? Try explicitly setting that to 0 as an additional test.

paneves

Member

Registered: 2016-01-17

Posts: 28

Re: [WORKED AROUND] Boot hangs with Linux but not with Linux-lts

Hi V1del, thanks for your inputs...

Early KMS was already enabled (ie, I have i915 in the modules section of my /etc/mkinitcpio.conf). Booting with systemd.unit=multi-user.target as a kernel parameter does not change the result - boot still hangs and the last msg I see is the same ("fb0..."). I had  i915's fastboot enabled, but disabling it (via the kernel parameter) does not have any (visible) effect.

The GMD Line I've used included: debug, loglevel=7, systemd.unit=multi-user.target and i915.fastboot=0

Arch's install media (2020.08.01) also only boot with the  "nomodeset" parameter....

Cheers:

Pedro

paneves

Member

Registered: 2016-01-17

Posts: 28

Re: [WORKED AROUND] Boot hangs with Linux but not with Linux-lts

Coming back to this issue, as it is still not solved, I came across a similar(?) issue here.
Unfortunately the proposed solution (add intel_iommu=on as a kernel boot parameter) doesn't work. Downgrading to linux 5.6.15 fixes the problem. Booting with Linux kernels after (and including) 5.7.2 lead to systemhangs.

I'm stuck here... I also have a laptop with Intel graphics running Arch where I don't have this problem (CPU Intel I7-7600U @ 2.80 GHz). My desktop (which has the problem) has an Intel Core i7 5775c.

Cheers:

Pedro

Last edited by paneves (2020-08-30 12:17:42)

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 17,362

Re: [WORKED AROUND] Boot hangs with Linux but not with Linux-lts

What about linux-mainline?  Also available from Unofficial_user_repositories#miffe.

paneves

Member

Registered: 2016-01-17

Posts: 28

Re: [WORKED AROUND] Boot hangs with Linux but not with Linux-lts

No luck. Still the same result with linux-mainline...

zpg443

Member

Registered: 2016-12-03

Posts: 271

Re: [WORKED AROUND] Boot hangs with Linux but not with Linux-lts

Have you read this about i915?

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= … 7-Released

and this:

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/inte … ote_608164

paneves

Member

Registered: 2016-01-17

Posts: 28

Re: [WORKED AROUND] Boot hangs with Linux but not with Linux-lts

@ zpg443: I was reading the second link a few hours ago. But I hadn't see the Phoronix article. I did just now... Thanks for the info.

However I'm not sure it's exactly the same issue. Most of the reports mention GPU crashes after loading SDDM. I can't even unlock my encrypted drive, let alone reaching SDDM...

I'll keep an eye at the issue tough...

Pedro

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 17,362

Re: [WORKED AROUND] Boot hangs with Linux but not with Linux-lts

If https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/linux-drm-tip-git/ also has the issue you can bisect between 5.6 and 5.7 to find the cause and then report it upstream https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/inte … -i915-bugs

molqr

Member

Registered: 2010-06-19

Posts: 10

Re: [WORKED AROUND] Boot hangs with Linux but not with Linux-lts

I am running into a similar problem with my ASUS ROG GL552JX laptop refusing to boot with any kernel later than 5.6.15-arch1-1. Even trying to boot the box with the latest arch install iso from September 2020 runs into the same problem i.e. the boot hangs and the last line on the screen is "fb0: switching to inteldrmfb from EFI VGA".

At this point even my keyboard does not respond and I have to reboot the laptop using the power on/off button.

I was upgrading my box using pacman -Syu and each time downgrading the kernel back to 5.6.15-arch1-1. However I messed up my box once. I had to restore all packages to the date 2020-06-01 by following the instructions at this page. Since that time I added "linux" to the IgnorePkg list in pacman.conf.

I want to move to the latest kernel so I once again upgraded to the latest (5.8.5) and tried to replicate what @paneves did.

When I provide the nomodeset kerner parameter, the boot seems to progress and I don't see the fb0:... line any more, however LXDM does not come up as can be seen [img=https://imgur.com/FY54uBY]here[/img]. I waited for quite some time but only found logs from audit which was trying to bring up lxdm  and failing (I am guessing here). So I gave up waiting for it to come up. Interestingly the keyboard was responsive this time. However I could not change to another tty and login as each time a new log message was coming up my terminal was changing to tty1. Also note the message from snd_hda_intel (in the linked image) which says "couldn't bind with audio component" and "..requires binding with gfx driver" (don't know what to make of it).

Next I tried the "intel_iommu=on" kernel parameter. This time the boot proceeded without any issues, albeit it was a bit slow but finally the LXDM login screen came up and I was able to login.

I am not sure if this is a solution to the problem so I reverted back to kernel 5.6.15 for now.

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4750HQ CPU @ 2.00GHz
VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Crystal Well Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 08)
3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GM107M [GeForce GTX 950M] (rev a2)
xf86-video-intel

paneves

Member

Registered: 2016-01-17

Posts: 28

Re: [WORKED AROUND] Boot hangs with Linux but not with Linux-lts

HI:

Just to let people now that I've managed to boot with a more recent kernel (5.9.0-rc4-1-drm-tip-git) using the workaround proposed here. As the page says, it's not a fix but a workaround.

Hope this helps others and thanks to everyone that helped me.

Cheers:

Pedro