Arch Linux

jowilkin

Member

Registered: 2009-05-07

Posts: 243

[Solved] System rendered unbootable (new kernel?)

After my latest pacman -Syu, my system will not boot successfully.  I think it may have something to do with the new kernel (2.6.32.2 I think).  It gets to the point where KMS kicked in in the past where it says something like

waiting for udev uevents to be processed...

Previously, at this point, my screen would flicker and when it came back on, I would be at native resolution.  Now the screen does the first half of the flicker and never comes back on.  i.e. the monitor stays in suspend like it is not getting a signal.  Any ideas?

edit: I should say I'm using an ATI card with the xf86-video-ati drivers, not trying to start KMS with any of the methods on the wiki.  My system started to use KMS automatically when I installed kernel 2.6.32.1 I believe.

Last edited by jowilkin (2009-12-21 02:40:32)

zhuqin

Member

Registered: 2008-01-31

Posts: 61

Re: [Solved] System rendered unbootable (new kernel?)

Same problem, ati video card.
disabling kms can fix it, but...
have to roll back to 2.6.23.1...

jowilkin

Member

Registered: 2009-05-07

Posts: 243

Re: [Solved] System rendered unbootable (new kernel?)

I've never had to downgrade a kernel before, what is the suggested method given that I cannot boot?

Should I just boot from live cd, and chroot into my installation?  Then I would assume I find the cached package in /var/cache/pacman/pkg and use pacman -U to install it as the wiki suggests?

jowilkin

Member

Registered: 2009-05-07

Posts: 243

Re: [Solved] System rendered unbootable (new kernel?)

Well I did what I described in my last post - boot from live cd (chakra, very nice!), chroot into hard drive install, rollback to 2.6.32.1 packages in /var/cache/pacman/pkg (kernel26-headers, kernel26-firmware, and kernel26), and I'm back running again.  I'll mark the thread solved.

Should this bug be reported to the devs or is it known already?

Rabauke

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2009-12-19

Posts: 19

Re: [Solved] System rendered unbootable (new kernel?)

If you get a blank screen, you don't have to enter your installation through
a live cd.

When GRUB appears just press 'e' twice. First for interrupting boot sequnce,
then highlight the kernelline and press it again. You are in editor mode now and
you can append radeon.modeset=0.
Press 'Esc' to leave und then 'b' for boot.

Edit: Works at least on late KMS.

Responsible commit may be

commit 373b9483b6b1cc9ec21080ba29c90e9968102aa8
Author: Alex Deucher <alexdeucher@gmail.com>
Date:   Wed Dec 2 11:46:52 2009 -0500

    drm/radeon/kms: handle vblanks properly with dpms on

I rolled back to 32.1, too.

Last edited by Rabauke (2009-12-21 09:51:16)

Kai

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2006-12-11

Posts: 27

Re: [Solved] System rendered unbootable (new kernel?)

Just wait for 2min and disable KMS then.

It WILL work.

chickenlinux

Member

Registered: 2009-12-21

Posts: 8

Re: [Solved] System rendered unbootable (new kernel?)

I had this probem until the updated kernel26 and kernel26-firmware came out from the testing repo. I just used the fallback until then. And, all of a sudden, after the update, my KMS and DRI and 3D actually WORKED! I was thrilled! I am no longer dependent on fglrx!

EDIT: The combination of kernel updates and a new ati driver the day before is what fixed it, methinks.

Glad you got it working though!

Last edited by chickenlinux (2009-12-31 19:05:13)