15.04 will not boot on MacBook 2,1

[timgood]

Installation media for both 32 and 64bit systems will not boot on MacBook 2,1. Get the ISOLinux screen, purple screen with man in circle, but then just a black screen. Think the 3.19 kernel does not work for MacBooks with Intel Graphics. Can boot in low res with 'nomodeset' but very slow and laggy. Any ideas?

[timgood]

Bonk...

[timgood]

Seems as this is not an EFI or UEFI problem, but a kernel problem. Any reason why the 3.19 kernel should not boot? Know of any boot parameters I can try from grub? I know it's an elderly system, but has Intel Dual Core processor and other elderly systems boot fine. Just MacBook 2,1 will not get past initial boot screen.

[stephen-gibson]

Same issue with my Macbook 1,1. Normal graphics with 3.16.0-34-generic #47-Ubuntu SMP, not for the newer kernels.

Steve

PS:

Here is the working video hardware description
sudo lshw -C video
*-display:0
description: VGA compatible controller
product: Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 2
bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
version: 03
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
resources: irq:16 memory:90380000-903fffff ioport:20f0(size=8) memory:80000000-8fffffff memory:90400000-9043ffff

[bryan-cebuliak-gmail]

Lubuntu 15.04 on refit grub dual boot macbook 2,1 linux-image-3.16 will boot, though
sometimes hangs but, reboot will work eventually.
3.19 never
? is the GPU hang reported in kern.log relevant here? i915 problem?
see kern.log snippet attached
see error attached from GPU crash dump saved to /sys/class/drm/card0/error

This seems to be a BUG as suggested by the log:
"...
Please file a _new_ bug report on bugs.freedesktop.org against DRI -> DRM/Intel
..."

I threw it on the bug pile. See:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...x/+bug/1455852

[stephen-gibson]

Console boot (systemd) log gets to:
:
Started udev Kernel Device Manager (causes a brighter screen)
Created slice system-ifup.slice. (3.19/4.0 kernels do not get past this point)
Created slice system-systemd\x2dbacklight.slice.


(upstart) gets to:
Adding 1080072k swap on /dev/sda4.

All kernels boot in recovery mode.

[timgood]

Hmm. Is there a way of adding Kernel 4.03 say to the .iso so that the MacBook will boot and install a newer kernel? Or should I install using 'nomodset' and then upgrade the kernel and hope the graphics start working?

[stephen-gibson]

Tim,

Thanks mate for starting this thread, and providing the solution. Kernel 4.03 works.

Installation instructions are here: http://www.yourownlinux.com/2015/05/...-in-linux.html

i.e.
wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa...131441_all.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa...1441_amd64.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa...1441_amd64.deb

sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-4.0.3*.deb linux-image-4.0.3*.deb

Steve.

[timgood]

No problem Steve. How did you get it working? Did you install using 'nomodeset' and then upgrade the kernel? Or did you upgrade from 14.04/10? I'm looking to do a clean install so booting the installation media is a problem.

[stephen-gibson]

I upgraded from 14.10 and so there was no video issue until reboot.