Arch Linux

pingo

Member

Registered: 2022-12-22

Posts: 2

[SOLVED] Xorg no screens found; networking is dead

OS: Arch Linux x86_64
Kernel: 5.19.8-arch1-1
CPU: Intel i7-10700 (16) @ 4.800GHz
GPU: Intel CometLake-S GT2 [UHD Graphics 630]
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti

Hi all, my system started freezing during the boot process (caps lock wouldn't even light up), so I chroot'd from a live usb and ran "pacman -Syu" which stopped the freezing. Then I had a follow-up problem which was identical to this thread. I followed the 8 steps in the final post and was able to access the shell, but Xorg wasn't able to load. systemd-networkd wasn't running either.

The Xorg log: http://ix.io/4jiU

Some things I observed / attempted:
1. I use GRUB as a bootloader, and my system is UEFI. My /boot doesn't have a /grub or /efi directory in comparison to the previous thread's solution. The only files are

$ ls /boot
initramfs-linux-fallback.img
initramfs-linux.img
intel-ucode.img
vmlinuz-linux

Is this file structure is considered normal?

2. Since I have an NVIDIA GPU, I also took a look at this thread. "mkinitcpio -P" terminated with success (while the boot partition was commented out), but the system still failed to mount /boot.

3. I tried mounting the boot partition (sda1) to /mnt manually to see what would happen:

$ sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
mount: unknown filesystem type 'vfat'

Seems like people fixed this problem with a reboot, but for me the error still persisted afterwards.

4. My arch distros are still different. I ran "pacman -S linux" once in the rescue shell, and again as root in the "normal shell" (please correct me with the right term).

$ uname -a
Linux puter 5.19.8-arch1-1 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu, 08 Sep 2022 18:07:42 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux
$ pacman -Q linux
linux 6.1.1.arch1-1

This thread noted if the /boot partition was unmounted during the update, versions might diverge. That's probably what happened.

Overall, I can access all my files just fine (already did a backup), but some services like xorg, iwctl, networkctl, etc. aren't working, and I'm stuck on figuring out why. Thanks in advance!

Last edited by pingo (2022-12-23 01:50:08)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,259

Re: [SOLVED] Xorg no screens found; networking is dead

The /boot contents make sense under the assumption that it was never your actual /boot partition and everything else makes sense from there. So during your initial install /boot was a mount point to somewhere - likely your ESP - but you did not adjust your fstab to mount that and any update after that point never actually updated your kernel on the boot parititon.

If you have a live disk, boot that up, mount your root partition to /mnt and your boot partition to /mnt/boot and arch-chroot /mnt. Reinstall the linux package and fix your fstab so that the intended /boot partition is actually mounted there.

If you do not have a live disk, you can also install the 5.19.8-arch1-1 kernel from your cache so that the kernel you are booting and it's modules align again, which should restore general functionality to follow the other steps outlined above.

pingo

Member

Registered: 2022-12-22

Posts: 2

Re: [SOLVED] Xorg no screens found; networking is dead

If you have a live disk, boot that up, mount your root partition to /mnt and your boot partition to /mnt/boot and arch-chroot /mnt. Reinstall the linux package and fix your fstab so that the intended /boot partition is actually mounted there.

Tried this. My understanding of "fix your fstab" is to just uncomment the line describing the block device that will mount to /boot. I rebooted again, and now the boot sequence hangs when it says

:: running early hook [dev]
Starting systemd-udevd version 252.4-2-arch
:: running hook [dev]
:: Triggering uevents...
...
[    1.137703] i915 0000:00:020: enabling device (0000 -> 0003) // hangs here

Chroot'd back into the system from a live usb, and "uname -a" still displays a linux version older than "pacman -Q linux". I also took a peek at journalctl, see: http://ix.io/4jjH (ctrl+F "Power key" to jump to the final tasks)

I think it's strange how some services display messages with long delays between them. For now, I'm going to boot the system normally and let it sit for an hour. I do appreciate the help.

EDIT: read this thread, and setting "nomodeset" as a boot parameter worked! This technically solves my problem, but I'm not convinced it's the "right" solution. If someone knows more about this, please direct me.

Last edited by pingo (2022-12-23 01:49:45)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,259

Re: [SOLVED] Xorg no screens found; networking is dead

You're booting the correct kernel now, the remaining issue is a kernel change where a i915 card will hog the tty framebuffer and not release it for nvidia, while setting nomodeset can be a workaround the more proper fix would be to disable the integrated gpu in your UEFI or blacklist i915 via a /etc/modprobe.d/disableigpu.conf

 install i915 /usr/bin/true

Side info, if you are in the system you can unmount /boot and clean out the old, defunct files under the /boot directory (/boot should be empty while nothing is mounted on it for your system)

uname -a from a chroot will mostly be different since the chroot retains and runs the kernel your ISO is

Last edited by V1del (2022-12-23 18:58:29)