Mint 11 kernel regression on Lenovo Ideapad G575

[Juraj Cerven]

I have recently (in august 2011) purchased notebook Lenovo IdeaPad G575 AMD Fusion without OS

Processor: AMD Zacate Dual-Core E-350 1,6 GHz, 2x 512 KB L2 Cache 2 core, max TDP: 18 W
RAM: 1x 2 GB DDR3 1066 MHz
Display: 15,6" LCD TFT LED illumination glossy, resolution 1366 x 768
Graphics card (internal in processor chip): AMD Radeon HD6310
HDD: 320 GB 5400 RPM
DVD: SuperMulti DVD-RW DL
Integrated sound card
Stereo spekers
Webcam

Ethernet 10/100 Mbit/s
Wireless LAN 802.11b/g/n
4x USB 2.0
1x D-Sub (VGA)
1x RJ-45
1x Mic
1x Headphones
1x card reader 2in1 (SD/ MMC)

This model is quite new (2011) so I would understand, that it won't work with older versions of Linux. But opposite has happend.

I tried to boot live DVD Linux Mint 11 Katya 64 bit.
System started booting, but as it came to start GUI it has frozen and only hard reset has helped.

Later I have tried to boot Linux Mint Debian Gnome 2011-08 64 bit live DVD and Kubuntu 11.04 64 bit live CD (I wanted to verify if the problem could be in Gnome) with the same sad result.

Ubuntu 11.10 Beta1 failed to boot too. Both 64 bit and 32 bit versions. The system has always frozen at some point.

I have always checked md5sum for iso image and also md5sum -c md5sum.txt for burned DVD. Everyting was OK.

I have tried various boot option combinations (nomodeset acpióff pci=routeirq ...) and BIOS sata mode = AHCI - all sugested in various Linux forums, but nothong has helped.

Also starting Mint in Compatibility Mode didn't helped. Mint Debian was able to run in terminal mode, but has reported "Boot failed".

All these media booted with no problem on my desktop PC.

I would be sure that problem was in hardware, but to my surprise Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick 32 bit and Linux Mint 10 Julia (both 64 and 32 bit) booted from live CD/DVD with no problems.

I have finally installed Linux Mint 10 64 bit, and everythig workes fine.
Just graphics has had resolution 1024 * 768 immediately after installation.
When I have installed additonal drivers from Mint repository I have got resolution 1366 * 768 but "AMD unsupported hardware" watermark appeared in the right lower corner of the screen.
Later I have replaced fglrx version 2.8.780 (from repository) with newer version fglrx_8.881-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb from AMD web site and everything workes perfect with no watermark.

To verify hypothesis that problem is in kernel I have tried Fedora 15 live CD - computer has frozen.
Fedora 14 live CD works fine

So it looks like kernel 2.6.35 works fine, higher kernel freezes.

So I am very dissapointed with this FATAL REGRESSION. I hope that till new version of Mint 12 or Ubuntu 11.10 this problem will be solved, as I don't want to stick to Mint 10 forever.

This type of regression is great shame for Linux which can discourage many potential users from using Linux. I would like to recommend Linux (Ubuntu or Mint) to my friends, but in this situation I cannot.

Please, help me to fix this problem.

[Juraj Cerven]

To be more precise, I have reported here, because the problem is not only in Linux Mint, but also in Ubuntu and other distribution of Linux. I don't know where is the proper place where I should report it.

Plese help to forward this problem to people who can correct kernel.

[Perfect Storm]

Moved to Other OS/Distro Talk.

[el_koraco]

It's probably not the kernel, but the fresh version of X in Fedora and Ubuntu plus the open source drivers. It would most certainly work right with AMD's driver. Try to boot the Live CD with adding nomodeset to the kernel line, that should get you to a rudimentary desktop.

[freechelmi]

It's probably not the kernel, but the fresh version of X in Fedora and Ubuntu plus the open source drivers. It would most certainly work right with AMD's driver. Try to boot the Live CD with adding nomodeset to the kernel line, that should get you to a rudimentary desktop.

Nope, Same here even with NoModeSet , freeze after the Drm loading it seems.

Apart from installing from the alternate CD in texte mode and install the AMD drivers manually I don't really see a solution

[freechelmi]

We should also check this bug :

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ux/+bug/775034

[freechelmi]

Ok Got it working now :

- installed with AlternateCD (not sure the issue cas related to amd drivers then)

- Add "blacklist atl1c" in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

- Call update-initramfs -u to update the modules loaded at boot.


No more freeze, but no more ethernet obviously.

[Juraj Cerven]

Ok Got it working now :

- installed with AlternateCD (not sure the issue cas related to amd drivers then)

- Add "blacklist atl1c" in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

- Call update-initramfs -u to update the modules loaded at boot.


No more freeze, but no more ethernet obviously.

Thanks a lot, for me is this workaround satisfying:

- ethernet plugged
- Wifi disabled ( via hardware button )
- Boot and install LinuxMint11 from LiveDVD
- Add "blacklist atl1c" in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
- Call update-initramfs -u to update the modules loaded at boot.

No more freeze, but no more ethernet obviously. It is no problem since WiFi works OK.
No problem with AMD graphics driver, installed from repository, everything works well.

Card reader repaired according to:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...1#post11316191

Now I am happy with this status . All hardware except ethernet works now perfect.

[freechelmi]

Thanks a lot, for me is this workaround satisfying:

Apart from that , do you confirm that the Fan is really loud all the time ?

[Juraj Cerven]

Apart from that , do you confirm that the Fan is really loud all the time ?

I don't think it is too loud.

For complete list of used workarounds I add this:

This notebook also freezes when connecting to WiFi on battery power. I am using the temporary work around from http://www.uluga.ubuntuforums.org/sh...php?p=10327529 : "sudo iwconfig wlan0 power off" before trying to connect to wlan when running on battery.

(from https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ux/+bug/684164 comment #9)