Ubuntu Server boot fails because missing hdmi drivers

[mastablasta]

some chips on atom did not have linux support at all. i can't remember which ones. but they were not actually made by intel, just designed and then outsourced. because the rest of intel chips have opensource drivers and are not an issue on linux.

in any case use what works best. Debian is a very good OS, especially for servers. and it's is not that much different from Ubuntu. their documentation is also very good and i often use it for Ubuntu as well.

[kaefert66014235]

Yes, I know Debian is a fine Linux distribution (and the base of Ubuntu and therefore quite similar to it) - That's why I've tried it next after Ubuntu sadly didn't work for me.

I just would have preferred Ubuntu, since I've got much more experience with it and I love the community communication channels available for Ubuntu such as ubuntuforums.org here.

Yes since this Qnap TS-469L is hardware that was never sold with the expectation that users would install a different operating system on it, I'm on a seldom travelled path here and it seems there are some incompatibilities.

I'm positively surprised that Debian 10 works without a problem, and would love it if somebody more knowledgeable than me could help me debug why Ubuntu doesn't.

[mastablasta]

Drivers in linux are part of kernel (core of the OS)

Debian 10 has kernel 4.19
Ubuntu 18.04 and 18.04.1 has kernel 4.15
Ubutnu 18.04.2 has kernel 4.18
Ubutnu 18.04.3 has kernel 5.0

Each kernel has smaller or larger changes to drivers. sometimes thing get dropped or sometimes there are regressions. you could try an older version of Ubuntu server - the 18.04.1 It is supported for 5 years with security updates.
http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/releases/18.04.1/

if this was a regression that caused the issue, it might get fixed. if some drivers (e.g. GPU or CPU support) got dropped from kernel with version 5.0 then time on your hardware started to run out. unless you are willing to patch the kernel or build one yourself (not something i would do).

[kaefert66014235]

ah okey, that's a good angle. I guess I could try different kernel versions under Debian 10? Is there an easy way to do that? On my Desktop I saw some GUI near the updater thingy to choose different kernel versions, can I do something similar on a Debian 10 server?

[mastablasta]

yes, you can. but if debian works you need to try Ubuntu with older kernel. if you downloaded from ubuntu website the default downloaded image will be the latest version. so you would have used 18.04.3, but you need to download and try 18.04.1, to see if kernel is the issue.

[kaefert66014235]

okey so in the default Debian 10 repositories I could only find a very limited range of available Kernel versions:

$ sudo apt-cache search linux-image
linux-headers-4.19.0-6-amd64 - Header files for Linux 4.19.0-6-amd64
linux-headers-4.19.0-6-cloud-amd64 - Header files for Linux 4.19.0-6-cloud-amd64
linux-headers-4.19.0-6-rt-amd64 - Header files for Linux 4.19.0-6-rt-amd64
linux-image-4.19.0-6-amd64-dbg - Debug symbols for linux-image-4.19.0-6-amd64
linux-image-4.19.0-6-amd64-unsigned - Linux 4.19 for 64-bit PCs
linux-image-4.19.0-6-cloud-amd64-dbg - Debug symbols for linux-image-4.19.0-6-cloud-amd64
linux-image-4.19.0-6-cloud-amd64-unsigned - Linux 4.19 for x86-64 cloud
linux-image-4.19.0-6-rt-amd64-dbg - Debug symbols for linux-image-4.19.0-6-rt-amd64
linux-image-4.19.0-6-rt-amd64-unsigned - Linux 4.19 for 64-bit PCs, PREEMPT_RT
linux-image-amd64-signed-template - Template for signed linux-image packages for amd64
linux-image-amd64 - Linux for 64-bit PCs (meta-package)
linux-image-amd64-dbg - Debugging symbols for Linux amd64 configuration (meta-package)
linux-image-cloud-amd64 - Linux for x86-64 cloud (meta-package)
linux-image-cloud-amd64-dbg - Debugging symbols for Linux cloud-amd64 configuration (meta-package)
linux-image-rt-amd64 - Linux for 64-bit PCs (meta-package), PREEMPT_RT
linux-image-rt-amd64-dbg - Debugging symbols for Linux rt-amd64 configuration (meta-package)
linux-image-4.19.0-6-amd64 - Linux 4.19 for 64-bit PCs (signed)
linux-image-4.19.0-6-cloud-amd64 - Linux 4.19 for x86-64 cloud (signed)
linux-image-4.19.0-6-rt-amd64 - Linux 4.19 for 64-bit PCs, PREEMPT_RT (signed)
linux-headers-4.19.0-5-amd64 - Header files for Linux 4.19.0-5-amd64
linux-headers-4.19.0-5-cloud-amd64 - Header files for Linux 4.19.0-5-cloud-amd64
linux-headers-4.19.0-5-rt-amd64 - Header files for Linux 4.19.0-5-rt-amd64
linux-image-4.19.0-5-amd64-dbg - Debug symbols for linux-image-4.19.0-5-amd64
linux-image-4.19.0-5-amd64-unsigned - Linux 4.19 for 64-bit PCs
linux-image-4.19.0-5-cloud-amd64-dbg - Debug symbols for linux-image-4.19.0-5-cloud-amd64
linux-image-4.19.0-5-cloud-amd64-unsigned - Linux 4.19 for x86-64 cloud
linux-image-4.19.0-5-rt-amd64-dbg - Debug symbols for linux-image-4.19.0-5-rt-amd64
linux-image-4.19.0-5-rt-amd64-unsigned - Linux 4.19 for 64-bit PCs, PREEMPT_RT
linux-image-4.19.0-5-amd64 - Linux 4.19 for 64-bit PCs (signed)
linux-image-4.19.0-5-cloud-amd64 - Linux 4.19 for x86-64 cloud (signed)
linux-image-4.19.0-5-rt-amd64 - Linux 4.19 for 64-bit PCs, PREEMPT_RT (signed)

But from the info you've posted under the assumption that the problem is a kernel regression the 3 Ubuntu versions 18.04, 18.04.1 and 18.04.2 should work the same as Debian 10 does.