[SOLVED] Blank screen after netinstall of Chimaera

switching2Devuan · 2022-05-12 17:15:47

Hello everybody,
this is my first post in this forum as I came across a problem after having done a fresh install of Chimaera from a netinstall.iso off of a usb-stick.
Installation was smooth and I chose runit as the init-system.
After rebooting the system, it started up until it got stuck at a petrol-colored blank screen which must be part of the "slim"-display-manager.
But there was no greeter, no mouse-pointer or anything else that would allow me to do anything, not to mention logging in to the actual DE.
The only thing possible was to move to a console via CTRL-ALT-Fx.
Not sure what to look for I finally rebooted the system with "init 6".
Same result though.

Is this a known problem and does someone know how to solve it?
I am not that experienced but usually am able to use the console to get basic things done.

(I installed Debian Bullseye about a month ago via netinstall and after reboot it just started up all the way the display manager (sddm) from which I could log in to my DE of choice without a hitch.
Now I would like to move to Devuan and as soon as I get that running, I will erase my Debian installation.)

Thanks in advance for any support. I appreciate any help.

Last edited by switching2Devuan (2022-05-12 17:20:41)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2022-05-12 18:00:21

What is your video card? You probably just need some firmware. The Debian wiki has a page on the subject which may be applicable here.

switching2Devuan · 2022-05-12 22:26:33

It doesn't have separate video card but an integrated chipset (Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset) on a 13 year old laptop. So it's been around for quite some time.
And as the background image of the login screen is being displayed (but only that), I would have guessed that it's not an issue that has to do with the drivers for above mentioned chipset.

The install for Debian Bullseye was not a problem whatsoever.
And during the install of Chimaera, I didn't see anything that would point to missing drivers or anything of the like.

I've installed lightdm afterwards and configured the system to use it instead of slim but to no avail.
Still no greeter, just a different background image.

(Did I expect too much in assuming that the Devuan installer is pretty much the same as Debian's minus everything that has to to with systemd?)

Last edited by switching2Devuan (2022-05-12 22:30:23)

alexkemp · 2022-05-12 22:53:37

What part of "You probably just need some firmware"" don't you understand? If you have an Ethernet connection to your ISP, or the netinstall.iso has a full complement of non-free firmware for every chipset (I doubt it) then HoaS's reply probably does not apply, but otherwise it may well do.

switching2Devuan · 2022-05-12 23:49:22

alexkemp wrote:

What part of "You probably just need some firmware"" don't you understand?

Wow, that's sounds pretty unfriendly and rather aggressive.
Did you just have a bad day or is this the usual way in this forum to treat newcomers?

alexkemp wrote:

If you have an Ethernet connection to your ISP, or the netinstall.iso has a full complement of non-free firmware for every chipset (I doubt it) then HoaS's reply probably does not apply, but otherwise it may well do.

Doesn't using a netinstall.iso imply that one needs a funcioning ethernet connection to be able to download the necessary files for the rest of the installation? I thought that was obvious to everyone.
And no, there is no non-free firmware or drivers necessary for that old chipset because otherwise the netinstall of Debian Bullseye would not have worked.

alexkemp · 2022-05-13 01:59:00

switching2Devuan wrote:

Doesn't using a netinstall.iso imply that one needs a funcioning ethernet connection to be able to download the necessary files for the rest of the installation? I thought that was obvious to everyone.

No, it is NOT obvious. Personally I also use a wired connection to my router, but my son's generation & younger use wireless, consider that to be normal & would rarely use Ethernet. WLAN & Bluetooth immediately mean non-free firmware whether on the motherboard or as an add-in card. Even mainstream intel & AMD CPUs need updating with microcode every so often (which is essentially firmware).

The point of my comment is that I found your lack of response to his attempt to help to be insulting to him. If you had replied that you made use of Ethernet & that therefore could obtain firmware on the fly during install, then he could have moved on to the next aspect to try to assist. If anyone can help then it is HoaS.

I'm sorry if you found my directness to be unfriendly.

PedroReina · 2022-05-13 09:20:12

switching2Devuan wrote:

The only thing possible was to move to a console via CTRL-ALT-Fx.

It is not a bad thing (It is best to use humour to clear the air, IMHO).

We can start to seek (posible) errors on the logs. First of all, could you post the output of dmesg run as root?

BTW: welcome

Head_on_a_Stick · 2022-05-13 09:59:47

@OP: what happens if you switch to a TTY, log in as your normal (non-root) user and run startx? If that doesn't launch the graphical desktop then please post the content of ~/.local/share/xorg/Xorg.Y.log, where Y is the number of the TTY from which startx was run.

And to clarify: 13 year-old Intel integrated graphics chips do not need firmware.

switching2Devuan · 2022-05-14 00:00:15

I booted Devuan again today (now yesterday) and there was the same wallpaper.... but this time with a greeter.
I could log into the DE without any problem. Everything working as it should (as fas as i can tell).

The thing that keeps puzzling me: I hadn't changed a single thing in this system.

The only thing I can think of is that it could have to do with the swap partition which is also used by Debian Bullseye.
During the installation of Devuan, the swap partition seemed to be recreated again by the Devuan installer and that must have caused a problem for Bullseye.
After the installation of Devuan, the start-up of Bullseye took a lot longer than usual and from what I've read, there was a problem with swapspace (I can write down the message if required).
When I was finally in my DE (in Bullseye), I started the taskmanager and noticed that there was no swapspace available.
So I fixed it with swapon. (But this problem is still present in Bullseye after every reboot.)
And since that swapon in Bullseye, I could finally log into Devuan without any problem, as the greeter is being shown.

I don't see any connecting link between both issues and I have no clue if that actually had to do with it.
I can just report what I've witnessed.
Now I just need to fix the problem in Bullseye (at least until I will completely replace it with Devuan).

PedroReina wrote:

We can start to seek (posible) errors on the logs. First of all, could you post the output of dmesg run as root?

I can provide the output which I saved in a txt-file but as the problem seemed to have solved itself, it's probably not of interesting anymore.
If it still is, let me know.

PedroReina wrote:

BTW: welcome

Thank you.

alexkemp wrote:

switching2Devuan wrote:
Doesn't using a netinstall.iso imply that one needs a funcioning ethernet connection to be able to download the necessary files for the rest of the installation? I thought that was obvious to everyone.
No, it is NOT obvious. Personally I also use a wired connection to my router, but my son's generation & younger use wireless, consider that to be normal & would rarely use Ethernet. WLAN & Bluetooth immediately mean non-free firmware whether on the motherboard or as an add-in card. Even mainstream intel & AMD CPUs need updating with microcode every so often (which is essentially firmware).

Ok, then there was a misunderstanding in the way that a connection was made to the internet. I never use wireless and to me reading about a "functioning ethernet connection" was synonymous to a working internet connection. My bad.
Still, to successfully perform an installation including a DE via a netinstall.iso, a working internet connection is an absolute necessity. Otherwise I wouldn't have gotten anywhere.
And having mentioned that the install went smoothly (and that the install of Debian Bullseye went uneventful, too), I assumed that it was obvious to everyone that internet access was not the problem (otherwise the installation would not have been possible at all).
That's why I wonder that you wrote this...

alexkemp wrote:

If you had replied that you made use of Ethernet & that therefore could obtain firmware on the fly during install,

... as I had already mentioned in my very first post that the installation (including DE) was completed smoothly and uneventful.

alexkemp wrote:

The point of my comment is that I found your lack of response to his attempt to help to be insulting to him.

If you read my 2nd post again, you will find that there was no lack of response.
I answered his only question ("what is your video card?") and also gave feedback about why it can not possibly be missing drivers for the chipset governing the display (--> background wallpaper of the DM present; install of Debian Bullseye went without a hitch).

That's why I completely disagree with the point of your comment as it addressed something that I had already explained.
Can you now understand that I found it inappropriate and rather aggressive?

alexkemp wrote:

I'm sorry if you found my directness to be unfriendly.

Accepted. Let's forget about it.

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

@OP: what happens if you switch to a TTY, log in as your normal (non-root) user and run startx? If that doesn't launch the graphical desktop then please post the content of ~/.local/share/xorg/Xorg.Y.log, where Y is the number of the TTY from which startx was run.

I was about to try the startx-suggestion but as I could log in all of a sudden (see above), I didn't carry it out.
But I looked into ~/.local/share and was surprised to not find an xorg-directory (only an icc-directory).

Thank you everybody for your support so far.

Last edited by switching2Devuan (2022-05-14 00:06:07)

GlennW · 2022-05-14 01:12:57

There is a good chance that during the install the uuid of the swap partition had been renewed/changed.

I know that can cause problems, slow start to the system.

You can check this with blkid and /etc/fstab, that the references are the same, and if not correct them and reboot.

As for changing configs, you may need to change or set a root password, A quick web search may give you a solution.

All the best.

PedroReina · 2022-05-14 08:28:25

switching2Devuan wrote:

The only thing I can think of is that it could have to do with the swap partition which is also used by Debian Bullseye.

It is well known that since systemd appeared sharing swap partitions between distros in the same box is trickier that it used to be. But I don't know how can be related the swap issue with your DE problem. I see two options: 1) everything works, let's move on; 2) let's dig deeper triying to find the root of the problem. It is now up to you

alexkemp · 2022-05-14 11:53:25

During my update to Chimaera last October a single file in Backports sent a 404. The system was updating XFCE at that moment - which included SLIM, of course - and I was dropped into a non-GUI, Terminal screen much like yourself. After commenting out chimaera-backports within /etc/apt/sources.list I tried the upgrade again (and again & again) and followed the apt suggestions to fix errors:-

~$ sudo apt --fix-broken install
~$ sudo dpkg --configure -a

Ultimately, the whole thing was successful & I was back at a SLIM login + DE.

My upgrade was from Devuan beowulf rather than a fresh install like yourself. For that reason I did not mention it earlier, but then thought that perhaps another experience may offer a fresh insight.

switching2Devuan · 2022-05-15 13:20:18

GlennW wrote:

There is a good chance that during the install the uuid of the swap partition had been renewed/changed.
I know that can cause problems, slow start to the system.
You can check this with blkid and /etc/fstab, that the references are the same, and if not correct them and reboot.
As for changing configs, you may need to change or set a root password, A quick web search may give you a solution.
All the best.

That had been the cause.
After the installation of Devuan, the swap partition seemed to have gotten a different UUID which didn't match the previous one that was set in /etc/fstab in Bullseye.
I was able to fix it with your advice. Thanks a lot.

(I just wonder why that didn't happen the week before, when I installed AntiX on the partition that now Devuan is on.)

alexkemp wrote:

...and I was dropped into a non-GUI, Terminal screen much like yourself.

Ok, so you were directly dropped in a terminal, whereas I was in a GUI (background wallpaper without greeter) but was not able to do anything. Didn't even see a mouse pointer. I had to actively go to a termianal via CTRL+ALT+F2.

I just ran those 2 lines

alexkemp wrote:

and followed the apt suggestions to fix errors:-
~$ sudo apt --fix-broken install
~$ sudo dpkg --configure -a
Ultimately, the whole thing was successful & I was back at a SLIM login + DE.

...but they didn't return anything.
Reconfigured slim again to be the DM, rebooted but was again left with the background wallpaper with no possibility to do anything.

When I went to tty2, I found the following message (which may or may not be related):

[  120.058425] i915 0000:00:02.0: [drm] *ERROR* CPU pipe B FIFO underrun

So I went to tty3, changed back to ligthdm, rebooted and everything is fine (even though this error message is still present in tty2).

PedroReina wrote:

[But I don't know how can be related the swap issue with your DE problem. I see two options: 1) everything works, let's move on; 2) let's dig deeper triying to find the root of the problem. It is now up to you

If it is of any interest to one of you (or the Devuan project itself) to find the cause of the initial problem, I am willing to dig deeper if there are any ideas/suggestions where and what to look for. After all, this is currently a test installation and not the system for daily work.
Otherwise I would probably go for option 1 as I currently have no clue where to start digging.

Out of curiosity I added "slim" to my Debian Bullseye installation and set it to be the display manager to be used.
It didn't work and I was just left with a background wallpaper just as in Devuan.
Changed back to sddm and everything was fine again. Hmm.

Last edited by switching2Devuan (2022-05-15 13:55:12)

alexkemp · 2022-05-15 18:08:58

(I'm probably grasping at straws here):
This is the pig-awful difficulty with SLiM that I fell into when upgrading to Beowulf (Beowulf Release Notes):

The default session manager for all desktops is logind (libpam-elogind).

The fix is:

$ sudo apt install libpam-elogind

The previous SM was consolekit, but that was deprecated in Beowulf. My experience was NOT identical to yours, although I DID have a GUI. What I did not have was any ability to elevate privilege (equivalent of sudo in the Terminal) and therefore could not login nor logout without recourse to a Terminal.

Check whether you are using consolekit or logind (the two are mutually exclusive).

As I understand the change, it once & for all got rid of libsystemd0 & thus (hopefully) the last vestiges of SystemD. It thus also required a second reboot after upgrade (just like Windows).

GlennW · 2022-05-16 00:10:15

That had been the cause.
After the installation of Devuan, the swap partition seemed to have gotten a different UUID which didn't match the previous one that was set in /etc/fstab in Bullseye.
I was able to fix it with your advice. Thanks a lot.
(I just wonder why that didn't happen the week before, when I installed AntiX on the partition that now Devuan is on.)

No probles, glad to help. It happens because of formatting.

switching2Devuan · 2022-05-16 10:05:44

GlennW wrote:

No probles, glad to help. It happens because of formatting.

During the installation process I always select manual partitioning (which is mandatory for me as I have a triple boot system), so I can choose the proper partition for /.
Being used to installers of previous installations would just make use of an existing swap partition (instead of reformatting it), I honestly didn't pay attention to what the Devuan-installer was doing with swapspace.
Will have an eye on that from now on.

alexkemp wrote:

(I'm probably grasping at straws here):
This is the pig-awful difficulty with SLiM that I fell into when upgrading to Beowulf (Beowulf Release Notes):
The default session manager for all desktops is logind (libpam-elogind).
The fix is:
$ sudo apt install libpam-elogind
The previous SM was consolekit, but that was deprecated in Beowulf. My experience was NOT identical to yours, although I DID have a GUI. What I did not have was any ability to elevate privilege (equivalent of sudo in the Terminal) and therefore could not login nor logout without recourse to a Terminal.
Check whether you are using consolekit or logind (the two are mutually exclusive).
As I understand the change, it once & for all got rid of libsystemd0 & thus (hopefully) the last vestiges of SystemD. It thus also required a second reboot after upgrade (just like Windows).

Too bad that my experience is different from yours. Otherwise I could have just applied your fixes and most likely get it running.
On my system, elogind/libpam-elogind is already installed while consolekit is not.
Still, there is something wrong with slim as I just see a blank wallpaper.
My personal workaround is to use another DM and I can happily live with that.

I just wonder if I am the only one having problems with slim as it seems to be the default DM. At least I hadn't seen the option to choose another one during the installation (I might have overlooked it though).

Last edited by switching2Devuan (2022-05-16 10:37:01)

GlennW · 2022-05-16 11:39:27

I understand your discomfort as I also tripple boot.

In my experience, I found the best way was to have a fall back plan, thats how I found out about blkid, lsblk and using/editing fstab.

When I started to use GNU/Linux I was lead/taught to use separate partitions for most of the main directories, like /usr /var /tmp / /boot /home and /usr/src and swap.

However, I don't always do that, sometimes I'll let the installer decide the amount and size of separate partitions,

and sometimes The system is contained on one drive as a single partition, with the exception of a swap.

I think I remember getting a question when installing, "what login manager" I wanted to use, I generally chose lightdm. (maybe because I prefer the programs with kde/plasma)

I have used slim, sometimes it is installed by default, I think it was when I did a minimum install from the live iso... xfce4 or cinamon.

I like to have choices. Usually I experiment with other distros or desktop managers and rather than risk destroying my main system, I'll use an old harddrive for the task. (but I'll detatch all the other HDD's before install, and reattatch them after install and setup.)

I'm glad you got your system working. All the best.

(btw, I did little of this by myself, forums thike this have taught me, and saved me many times.)

I stand on the shoulders of giants!

Last edited by GlennW (2022-05-16 11:40:23)

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#1 2022-05-12 17:15:47

[SOLVED] Blank screen after netinstall of Chimaera

#2 2022-05-12 18:00:21

Re: [SOLVED] Blank screen after netinstall of Chimaera

#3 2022-05-12 22:26:33

Re: [SOLVED] Blank screen after netinstall of Chimaera

#4 2022-05-12 22:53:37

Re: [SOLVED] Blank screen after netinstall of Chimaera

#5 2022-05-12 23:49:22

Re: [SOLVED] Blank screen after netinstall of Chimaera

#6 2022-05-13 01:59:00

Re: [SOLVED] Blank screen after netinstall of Chimaera

#7 2022-05-13 09:20:12

Re: [SOLVED] Blank screen after netinstall of Chimaera

#8 2022-05-13 09:59:47

Re: [SOLVED] Blank screen after netinstall of Chimaera

#9 2022-05-14 00:00:15

Re: [SOLVED] Blank screen after netinstall of Chimaera

#10 2022-05-14 01:12:57

Re: [SOLVED] Blank screen after netinstall of Chimaera

#11 2022-05-14 08:28:25

Re: [SOLVED] Blank screen after netinstall of Chimaera

#12 2022-05-14 11:53:25

Re: [SOLVED] Blank screen after netinstall of Chimaera

#13 2022-05-15 13:20:18

Re: [SOLVED] Blank screen after netinstall of Chimaera

#14 2022-05-15 18:08:58

Re: [SOLVED] Blank screen after netinstall of Chimaera

#15 2022-05-16 00:10:15

Re: [SOLVED] Blank screen after netinstall of Chimaera

#16 2022-05-16 10:05:44

Re: [SOLVED] Blank screen after netinstall of Chimaera

#17 2022-05-16 11:39:27

Re: [SOLVED] Blank screen after netinstall of Chimaera

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