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From: Gilbert Sullivan on 11 Jun 2010 13:10
Running Squeeze with Xfce desktop environment (only) on Dell Latitude
D810. Nvidia video card running the VESA driver (though there's a bunch
of verbiage in dmesg about nouveau). System is normally connected to a
port replicator and DVI display (1680x1050).

Upgraded from 2.6.32-3 to 2.6.32-6 this morning, saying yes to
reconfiguration.

Upon reboot I see the normal scrolling of messages in the middle of the
screen, but (after populating devices message) the screen goes black.

After the system stops accessing the HD I use the power button to shut
down. (System is configured to shut down when power button is pressed.)
I reboot with old kernel. Everything goes normally, of course.

I undock from the port replicator and use the notebook's built-in
1920x1200 display, and the boot with the new kernel brings me to normal
gdm login and then desktop. The only difference between appearance of
boot using old kernel and new kernel is that, after the populating
devices message, the text stops scrolling down the middle of the screen
and starts scrolling down the left side. So I guess this is a video mode
issue.

What with all of the recent changes in the way video is handled (and an
aging brain) I gave up months ago on keeping up with changes in the
video functions of the system. I was going to wait for the dust to
settle and then learn how video works after the "migration' (or whatever
you call it) is complete. I guess I don't have that luxury now.

Can someone point me at documentation so I can try to figure out how to
deal with this? (I'd like to use the new kernel. I try to keep my system
as up-to-date as possible.)

Many thanks for clues.


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From: Sven Joachim on 11 Jun 2010 15:10
On 2010-06-11 19:06 +0200, Gilbert Sullivan wrote:

> Running Squeeze with Xfce desktop environment (only) on Dell Latitude
> D810. Nvidia video card running the VESA driver (though there's a
> bunch of verbiage in dmesg about nouveau). System is normally
> connected to a port replicator and DVI display (1680x1050).

The new kernel has a new framebuffer driver called nouveau that is
(usually) autoloaded by udev and replaces the vesa framebuffer driver.

> Upon reboot I see the normal scrolling of messages in the middle of
> the screen, but (after populating devices message) the screen goes
> black.

Ouch. There have been several such reports, but as none of the
developers seems to be able to reproduce them, there is not much
progress in this area.

> After the system stops accessing the HD I use the power button to shut
> down. (System is configured to shut down when power button is
> pressed.) I reboot with old kernel. Everything goes normally, of
> course.
>
> I undock from the port replicator and use the notebook's built-in
> 1920x1200 display, and the boot with the new kernel brings me to
> normal gdm login and then desktop. The only difference between
> appearance of boot using old kernel and new kernel is that, after the
> populating devices message, the text stops scrolling down the middle
> of the screen and starts scrolling down the left side. So I guess this
> is a video mode issue.

I'm not sure I understand "middle of the screen" and "left side", but
the existing screen contents will be erased when nouveau is loaded.

> What with all of the recent changes in the way video is handled (and
> an aging brain) I gave up months ago on keeping up with changes in the
> video functions of the system. I was going to wait for the dust to
> settle and then learn how video works after the "migration' (or
> whatever you call it) is complete. I guess I don't have that luxury
> now.
>
> Can someone point me at documentation so I can try to figure out how
> to deal with this? (I'd like to use the new kernel. I try to keep my
> system as up-to-date as possible.)

Please send the dmesg output. If possible, connect to the machine via
ssh when the port replicator is docked in.

Sven


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From: Andreas Rönnquist on 11 Jun 2010 16:40
On Fri, 11 Jun 2010 13:06:04 -0400
Gilbert Sullivan <whirlygig(a)comcast.net> wrote:

> Running Squeeze with Xfce desktop environment (only) on Dell Latitude
> D810. Nvidia video card running the VESA driver (though there's a bunch
> of verbiage in dmesg about nouveau). System is normally connected to a
> port replicator and DVI display (1680x1050).
>
> Upgraded from 2.6.32-3 to 2.6.32-6 this morning, saying yes to
> reconfiguration.
>
> Upon reboot I see the normal scrolling of messages in the middle of the
> screen, but (after populating devices message) the screen goes black.
>
----->8------
>
> Many thanks for clues.
>
>
Hi!

I've ran into this too, and got this solved by blacklisting the nouveau
module in

/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

(adding a line containing just "blacklist nouveau"),
and adding modeset=0 to my kernel line in /boot/grub/menu.lst (I am
still on grub-legacy, don't know how it is done on grub-2 unfortunately)

This made the system boot fine, but X didn't start before reinstalling
the nvidia drivers. Doing so and rebooted I was in a functional X, just
like before the upgrade of the kernel.

best regards
--
Andreas Rönnquist <gusnan(a)gusnan.se>


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From: Gilbert Sullivan on 11 Jun 2010 18:20
On 06/11/2010 03:08 PM, Sven Joachim wrote:
> On 2010-06-11 19:06 +0200, Gilbert Sullivan wrote:
>
>> Running Squeeze with Xfce desktop environment (only) on Dell Latitude
>> D810. Nvidia video card running the VESA driver (though there's a
>> bunch of verbiage in dmesg about nouveau). System is normally
>> connected to a port replicator and DVI display (1680x1050).
>
> The new kernel has a new framebuffer driver called nouveau that is
> (usually) autoloaded by udev and replaces the vesa framebuffer driver.
>

Thank you for that information. I suspected that the change to nouveau
might be involved in some way.

>> Upon reboot I see the normal scrolling of messages in the middle of
>> the screen, but (after populating devices message) the screen goes
>> black.
>
> Ouch. There have been several such reports, but as none of the
> developers seems to be able to reproduce them, there is not much
> progress in this area.
>

I can reproduce it for them!

;)

>> After the system stops accessing the HD I use the power button to shut
>> down. (System is configured to shut down when power button is
>> pressed.) I reboot with old kernel. Everything goes normally, of
>> course.
>>
>> I undock from the port replicator and use the notebook's built-in
>> 1920x1200 display, and the boot with the new kernel brings me to
>> normal gdm login and then desktop. The only difference between
>> appearance of boot using old kernel and new kernel is that, after the
>> populating devices message, the text stops scrolling down the middle
>> of the screen and starts scrolling down the left side. So I guess this
>> is a video mode issue.
>
> I'm not sure I understand "middle of the screen" and "left side", but
> the existing screen contents will be erased when nouveau is loaded.
>

This is a notebook, and I have the video set in BIOS to not "expand" to
fill the screen. So it uses and area that's something like 800x600 in
the middle of the screen. It uses that small area for the scrolled
messages at boot time all the way up until GDM is loaded -- that's when
I'm using the old kernel -- with either the 1680x1050 DVI external LCD
or the built-in 1920x1200 LCD.

When using the new kernel with the external LCD, it just goes black
after the /dev populated message. With the built-in LCD that's the point
where it stops using the 800x600 area and starts using the entire screen
for the scrolled messages.

>> What with all of the recent changes in the way video is handled (and
>> an aging brain) I gave up months ago on keeping up with changes in the
>> video functions of the system. I was going to wait for the dust to
>> settle and then learn how video works after the "migration' (or
>> whatever you call it) is complete. I guess I don't have that luxury
>> now.
>>
>> Can someone point me at documentation so I can try to figure out how
>> to deal with this? (I'd like to use the new kernel. I try to keep my
>> system as up-to-date as possible.)
>
> Please send the dmesg output. If possible, connect to the machine via
> ssh when the port replicator is docked in.
>
> Sven
>

Thank you, Sven.

I booted the system connected to the port replicator and let it go to
the black screen. I logged on to it via ssh and got the output of dmesg,
which I'm attaching to this message as dmesg.txt.

From: Gilbert Sullivan on 11 Jun 2010 18:30
On 06/11/2010 04:30 PM, Andreas R�nnquist wrote:
> On Fri, 11 Jun 2010 13:06:04 -0400
> Gilbert Sullivan<whirlygig(a)comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> Running Squeeze with Xfce desktop environment (only) on Dell Latitude
>> D810. Nvidia video card running the VESA driver (though there's a bunch
>> of verbiage in dmesg about nouveau). System is normally connected to a
>> port replicator and DVI display (1680x1050).
>>
>> Upgraded from 2.6.32-3 to 2.6.32-6 this morning, saying yes to
>> reconfiguration.
>>
>> Upon reboot I see the normal scrolling of messages in the middle of the
>> screen, but (after populating devices message) the screen goes black.
>>
> ----->8------
>>
>> Many thanks for clues.
>>
>>
> Hi!
>
> I've ran into this too, and got this solved by blacklisting the nouveau
> module in
>
> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
>
> (adding a line containing just "blacklist nouveau"),
> and adding modeset=0 to my kernel line in /boot/grub/menu.lst (I am
> still on grub-legacy, don't know how it is done on grub-2 unfortunately)
>
> This made the system boot fine, but X didn't start before reinstalling
> the nvidia drivers. Doing so and rebooted I was in a functional X, just
> like before the upgrade of the kernel.
>
> best regards

Many thanks for this information, Andreas. I'll study the possibility of
blacklisting nouveau, but it sounds like I'll have to overcome two
issues to make use of it.

First, I'm using grub 2. Second, I've learned the hard way that this
system does not get along with the nvidia proprietary drivers. (That's
why I've been using vesa. Vesa has been slow, but absolutely rock solid
for me.)

Again, many thanks.


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