11.04 Live CD will not Boot HP-Pavilion

[snowShoveler]

Currently, I have a dual boot system running Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.04 (32 bit) on an HP Pavilion with an amd athlon 645 X4, integrated radeon HD 4200 graphics and wifi (rt5390, had to build drivers) anyways. Everything works fine in 10.04 but the 11.04 live CD (32 bit) will not boot. I figured out how to get the verbose screen and it seems all disk activity stops when it reaches a line that says

Stopping System V Runlevel compatability

It just dies. I can hold down my power button and it brings up the ubuntu splash screen and gracefully exits wherever it is, but Ubuntu never fires up properly. Used the check disk functionality on the live disk to check the cd's integrity, it passed. Tried a few different times and same results. I have an old 8.04 lts live disk that booted fine.

Any ideas? I didn't see anything on the forums that had a good work around. I'm just trying to play with the current version to see if i want to upgrade, and only want to run the LiveCD version. I also experienced the same results (not booting) with a Kubuntu 11.04 64 bit live CD

[MAFoElffen]

Currently, I have a dual boot system running Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.04 (32 bit) on an HP Pavilion with an amd athlon 645 X4, integrated radeon HD 4200 graphics and wifi (rt5390, had to build drivers) anyways. Everything works fine in 10.04 but the 11.04 live CD (32 bit) will not boot. I figured out how to get the verbose screen and it seems all disk activity stops when it reaches a line that says
Stopping System V Runlevel compatabilityIt just dies. I can hold down my power button and it brings up the ubuntu splash screen and gracefully exits wherever it is, but Ubuntu never fires up properly. Used the check disk functionality on the live disk to check the cd's integrity, it passed. Tried a few different times and same results. I have an old 8.04 lts live disk that booted fine.

Any ideas? I didn't see anything on the forums that had a good work around. I'm just trying to play with the current version to see if i want to upgrade, and only want to run the LiveCD version. I also experienced the same results (not booting) with a Kubuntu 11.04 64 bit live CD
So it looks like you read the first 3 posts of my sticky:
Sticky: [all variants] Graphics Resolution- Upgrade /Blank Screen after reboot (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1743535)

and replaced the linux kernel boot switches "quiet splash" with "text --verbose" and it still hung at (?)


Stopping System V Runlevel compatability
Right there it or when "checking battery state" is where the boot process starts up X-Windows and starts hitting the Graphics drivers...

Refer to post #3 (http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=10740097&postcount=3) (<-- Link) for instructions with pictures (first half of that post) on how to add kernel boot options while using the LiveCD. The boot option you want to try is


radeon.modeset=0
Even if you did a dist-upgrade from 10.04 to 11.04, i think you would have to update your driver for that card...

[snowShoveler]

Thanks,

I tried the -- radeon.mode=0, which it didn't like (have to try running thru it again a few times, it whines about not knowing what "mode" means, but I'll try and get a direct quote. Adding this did cause loading fallback graphics drivers to [fail]. It did try to bring up the screen but fails to a cli. I tried "sudo service gdm start" and it states its running, so i stop it and try to restart it and it starts, but I get a flicker of graphics artifacts and it drops back into the cli. I tried the nomodeset option too at boot, didn't even get a cli, just a black screen.

Wow, 11.04 really doesn't like my hardware, which is suprising since the HD 4200 chipset is instantly recognized by the old versions of ubuntu I have. My old PC died (mobo failure) and I pulled my linux drive out and dropped it in this rig and it fired up without a hitch!

I was looking to see what the new windows manager is like. I might wait for 11.10 to see if they get this bug worked out. I've had a radeon card since 7.10 and never had issues until trying this version.

Anyways, I'll try some of the other ideas on your referenced posts to see if I can get past this hardware hurdle.

[snowShoveler]

The live CD does work. Just tested it in a VirtualBox on the same PC :)

[MAFoElffen]

Sorry, typo on my part! ::embarrassed::

Use this instead:


radeon.modeset=0

I'll go back and edit my earlier post.

[snowShoveler]

Ok, I've tried each of the following:

--nomodeset
--radeon mode=0
--radeon modeset=0
--radeon modeset=1
--radeon.modeset=0
--nomodeset --acpi=off
--nomodeset --vga=771
--xforcevesa

as flags to the boot line on the live cd and never get to the graphical part of the live cd, using ctrl+alt+f2 I can get a terminal, ctrl+alt+f1 can get me to the last part of the verbose from booting.

the mouse pointer sometimes shows up and i can move it for a few seconds then it freezes, screen flickers between black and the text in the cli and then the graphical interface is unresponsive. ctrl+alt+f2..f6 gets me cli's.

It looks as if the radeon stuff is loading fine, I see lines at the end of the verbose boot like
[drm] radeon ib pool ready
[drm] ib test succeeded
....
[drm] initialized radeon 2.8.0 20080528 for 000:01:05 on minor 0

I can start/stop the gdm service, but noting noteworthy, seems to stop/start fine.

I do have 10.04 installed, is there anywhere in those logs that could give a clue about how to get 11.04 booted, or is there something fundamentally different in kernels/drivers/etc?? Does the fact that my wireless lan card is unsupported out-of-the-box cause issues??

I'm truly stumped. I do have the embedded ATI radeon hd 4200, its in a 785G chipset, recognized as the RS880...

Any other ideas? I tried 11.10 beta 2 too, same results.

for all the different boots!?!

[Quackers]

Where did the "--" come from before nomodeset? It shouldn't be there.

[snowShoveler]

Tried above commands omitting the '--' and the results were even worse, didn't change screen res from 80 col to 160 col, and didn't even see system attempt graphics (ie my failing mouse pointer)

Documentation is really unclear on how to treat flags. Most commands use a - or -- immediately followed by the option. omitting it on most commands results in failure. I tried leaving a space immediately after the -- like it says somewhere under the help for live cd boot options, but that seems to have the same results as omitting any kind of dashes.

I'm assuming that the boot options are entered the same way as options to any other command on the CLI, is this an incorrect assumption?

[Quackers]

Not in my experience. You press the back space key to delete "quiet splash" then making sure there is a space after the last entry you just type in nomodeset and press ctrl + X to boot.

[MAFoElffen]

Tried above commands omitting the '--' and the results were even worse, didn't change screen res from 80 col to 160 col, and didn't even see system attempt graphics (ie my failing mouse pointer)

Documentation is really unclear on how to treat flags. Most commands use a - or -- immediately followed by the option. omitting it on most commands results in failure. I tried leaving a space immediately after the -- like it says somewhere under the help for live cd boot options, but that seems to have the same results as omitting any kind of dashes.

I'm assuming that the boot options are entered the same way as options to any other command on the CLI, is this an incorrect assumption?
But NOT kernel boot parameters, except for '--verbose"... all others (that I know of) for kernel boot options are just the parameter or the parameter/value.

I'm glad that Quakers saw that dashes and interpreted it as that, as I saw them and assumed that you just added those dashes to the post to check off those taht you had tried... Good catch on that Quakers!

So catching upto where you are now- You cannot boot off an Integrated ATI GPU on the 11.04 LiveCD, but 10.04 runs fine from another install.

Does it boot on a 10.04 LiveCD? One idea, would be to install from a LiveCD That boots, then install it's driver. Then dist-upgrade to 11.04.

Yous said that the PC reports your HD 4200 card as having a RS880 GPU... which is correct. The RS88- is the chipset for the ATI HD 4200 video card.

The opensourced Radeon and VESA drivers support this card. Ubuntu says it is recognized and:

Quoted from the Ubuntu RadeonDriver Documentation

No configuration is necessary for ATI driver in the modern versions of Ubuntu. You can safely take away your xorg.conf and your computer will run fine.
In your case, that statement seesm to be wrong...

Can you try these kernel boot startup parameters alternately (one at a time) as they are listed below?


nomodeset
radeon modeset=0
radeon modeset=1
vga=792
xforcevesa
And while locked up, jump over to the CLI and posts th results of


dmesg | grep drm
LIBGL_DEBUG=verbose glxinfo

[snowShoveler]

Thanks for explaining the -- thing, i was confused, now just less confused.

Yes, the machine will boot up fine on a 10.04.3 live cd and an 8.04 live cd, which is a bit baffling. Initially I assumed that since those worked fine 11.04 would too. I will attempt to boot w/those options and try to post the results, any way to save the info from the CLI to a thumbdrive!? Otherwise I'll just use my secretarial skills!

[MAFoElffen]

Thanks for explaining the -- thing, i was confused, now just less confused.

Yes, the machine will boot up fine on a 10.04.3 live cd and an 8.04 live cd, which is a bit baffling. Initially I assumed that since those worked fine 11.04 would too. I will attempt to boot w/those options and try to post the results, any way to save the info from the CLI to a thumbdrive!? Otherwise I'll just use my secretarial skills!
LOL !!! If you use some "redirection" you could create files to post get to your usb drive or to your 10.04 install (if you mounted them first).

[Quackers]

Here are some details on how to use boot options on both a live cd/usb and a newly installed system
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1613132

[snowShoveler]

Somewhere out there is a post with 3 tries on the grep drm booting 11.04.

Before i forget, thanks MAFoElffen and Quakers for your guidance.

I figured I'd give you a dump of those files from 10.04, since it actually works. I see there's no panic. I'm hoping the other post shows soon otherwise I'll repost tomorrow.

I did look at the whole dmesg thing when booting 11.04 with modeset=0. Last line in it is an Xorg segfault error 11

Anyways attached are "healthy" logs... not sure if that helps, helps me a bit though. and the other logs, hopefully names make sense.

I can't get mesa-utils in 11.04 b/c i don't have a wifi driver that works in 11.04, had to build from source in 10.04. I don't have a 50 ft lan cord anywhere either right now... so no output from glxinfo for 11.04

[MAFoElffen]

Try using "radeon.modeset=0 vmalloc=256M"

[snowShoveler]

No luck.

Here's the dmesg | grep drm output from your suggestion


radeon.modeset=0 vmalloc=256M

is this a kernel issue? Just wondering because there's a post http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=10740087&postcount=2 in the main post you have out there that talks about kernel issues. Live CD uses 2.6.38-8 based on uname -a results.

[MAFoElffen]

No luck.

Here's the dmesg | grep drm output from your suggestion


radeon.modeset=0 vmalloc=256Mis this a kernel issue? Just wondering because there's a post http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=10740087&postcount=2 in the main post you have out there that talks about kernel issues. Live CD uses 2.6.38-8 based on uname -a results.
Yes I remember. That's my sticky and post. Thanks for reminding me.

The hardware combination that that happens on is a little rare, but still happens. Nostly happened with the 2.6.38.8 kernel, Radeon cards and when APCI was left off... Was fixed in 2.6.38.10.

Here's one of my work-arounds for that when installing from the LiveCD:

Use "radeon.modeset=0 apci=off" as a kernel boot option during LiveCD starup.

During the install, enable/click on the box that "downloads updates during install."

Install should update the kernel to present which I think today is still 2.6.38.11. Then you shouldn't need APCI=off as a boot parameter after that.

[MAFoElffen]

If it does boot up, go to "Try" and install from there. Make sure you check the boxes for updates and installing 3rd party software. When you reboot after the install, use the same boot options to boot and check to see iif the video drivers for your card were installed. If not install them.

Reboot. If it doesn't boot without the "apci=off" switch, use instead "vga=792" as your kernel boot switch see below). Open your /etc/default/grub and uncomment and edit the "GFXMODE=" line to:


GFXMODE=1024x768x24
Edit the line "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT". which is the persistent kernel boot parameter line to:


GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash vga=792"
Add a line that says:


GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=text
After saving the file, run


sudo update-grub
To pick up the changes. (That is the work-around for the "apci=off" bug... )

[snowShoveler]

Here's one of my work-arounds for that when installing from the LiveCD:

Use "radeon.modeset=0 apci=off" as a kernel boot option during LiveCD starup.


Tried this, no luck, even tried it with radeon.modeset=1 and acpi=off and same black screen.

Ugh. I tried the 11.10 beta 2 and that resulted in the black screen (tried all the options I tried with 11.04), although it looks like the gnome screen saver segfaulted and lightdm was stopped by the system. Tried it in virtualBox, got to see the try or install graphic where it looks like a windows manager is involved, and the unity desktop. I see the kernel went to 3.0 Anyways, not sure if that's cause its beta still.

Tried a couple other distro's live CD's and they worked w/o any kernel settings. I don't get it?! I don't know enough to even guess .

I'm thinking I'll take a break from this... don't want to give up the working 10.04 yet, since, well, it works and has support for like 18 months or so.

Is this a bug, or just the chair to keyboard interface ;) , I can take it! Kidding aside, seriously, should I report a bug?

Thanks

[MAFoElffen]

Tried this, no luck, even tried it with radeon.modeset=1 and acpi=off and same black screen.

Ugh. I tried the 11.10 beta 2 and that resulted in the black screen (tried all the options I tried with 11.04), although it looks like the gnome screen saver segfaulted and lightdm was stopped by the system. Tried it in virtualBox, got to see the try or install graphic where it looks like a windows manager is involved, and the unity desktop. I see the kernel went to 3.0 Anyways, not sure if that's cause its beta still.

Tried a couple other distro's live CD's and they worked w/o any kernel settings. I don't get it?! I don't know enough to even guess .

I'm thinking I'll take a break from this... don't want to give up the working 10.04 yet, since, well, it works and has support for like 18 months or so.

Is this a bug, or just the chair to keyboard interface ;) , I can take it! Kidding aside, seriously, should I report a bug?

Thanks
I would submit as a bug. We've gone through everything.

Yes, it works great in VirtualBox, but default there in the Virtual Machine is with aan Intel GPU.

One thing to try would be Boot earlier version ISO until you get one to boot and "try", install that version. Install your graphics driver in that version, then upgrade to 11.04.

[snowShoveler]

For whomever may read this thread, this issue appears to have been fixed in 12.04. I successfully used the 12.04 alpha 1 liveCD.:D