[arch-general] Linux-3.7.3-1-i686 blank screen

[Mauro Santos]

On 09-02-2013 23:59, Whiskers wrote:
> On Tue, 22 Jan 2013 16:20:47 -0600 Leonid Isaev <lisaev at umail.iu.edu>
> wrote:
> 
>> On Tue, 22 Jan 2013 21:07:56 +0000
>> Whiskers <catwheezel at operamail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, 22 Jan 2013 19:25:45 +0100 Karol Babioch <karol at babioch.de>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> Am 22.01.2013 18:34, schrieb Whiskers:
> 
> [...]
> 
>>> I'm using the Nouveau video driver with an old laptop.  As
>>> Linux-3.6.11-1 seems to be stable for me, I'll wait for the next kernel
>>> version to reach the core repository.  
>>
>> If you're talking about 3.7.4, then it's unlikely to fix your issue,
>> because there are only radeon fixes in the changelog
>> http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.0/ChangeLog-3.7.4.
>>
>>>
>>> I'll also try to work out how to have the previous kernel still
>>> available to Grub-legacy after the next kernel upgrade.
>>>
>>> For the record, this is what my video hardware says it is:
>>>
>>> $ lspci | grep VGA
>>> 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation NV31M [GeForce FX
>>> Go5600] (rev a1)
> 
> I'm now up to Linux 3.7.6-1, and still the video card is going blank when
> booting.  It happens reliably whenever I boot with a kernel later than 
> linux-3.6.11-1-i686.pkg.tar.xz and happens at the point in the boot
> sequence where the print on the screen shrinks to a small size - I think
> that's when the 'frame buffer' is started.
> 
> I can log in 'blind' and issue console commands (eg shutdown -r now) but
> startx does nothing.  
> 
> If I edit the 3.7.* boot entry in Grub-legacy to include nomodeset then I
> do get to a visible login prompt, but of course no X.
> 
> For now, I'm booting into linux-lts-3.0.60-1-i686.pkg.tar.xz which works
> fine, but may not be a long-term solution.
> 
> I don't know enough to interpret all the log entries, but I have found
> that when booting from a kernel that successfully starts the
> graphics, /var/log/kernel.log has a line such as this:
> 
> Feb  9 18:29:00 tavy kernel: [   18.124619] [drm] Initialized nouveau
> 0.0.16 20090420 for 0000:01:00.0 on minor 0
> 
> whereas using a kernel that doesn't get the graphics working, the
> corresponding log entry is like this:
> 
> Feb  9 18:23:33 tavy kernel: [   16.068483] [drm] Initialized nouveau
> 1.1.0 20120801 for 0000:01:00.0 on minor 0
> 

It seems you are using late KMS, try adding nouveau to the MODULES array
in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and see if you still have problems.

I've had a problem similar to this quite a long time ago when kms stated
to be supported by the radeon driver, adding the module to the initramfs
solved the problem reliably.

> Both entries are confusing, given that the current nouveau packages
> installed are nouveau-dri 9.0.2-1 and xf86-video-nouveau 1.0.6-1.  Would I
> be right in guessing that xf86-video-nouveau 1.0.6-1 can handle the kernel
> initialising nouveau 0.0.16 but not 1.1.0?
> 


-- 
Mauro Santos