[Lubuntu] Some PC's or LTSP clients stall during boot at a blank, black screen

Sat Dec 8 21:45:52 UTC 2012

Hi folks,

well, it does seem we have a small core of people wanting to use LTSP with
lubuntu. If I could make a couple of suggestions?

We have a group that are advocates of PPC (the older Macs), for chasing
problems they use the lubuntu-quality area[1, 2] and that mailing list for
discussions. You good people are more than welcome to avail yourself of
that area. They prefix a subject title with PPC so that everyone knows what
an email is about (It is a low volume email account). I'd suggest making
use of it and using LTSP as your prefix.

There are some excellent resources and people really keen at the other
*buntu groups [3] specifically the Edubuntu guys. even though they do not
'run' lubuntu, they do have a good working knowledge of LTSP's and I'm sure
would be delighted to hear from you.

If you'd like me to create a lubuntu LTSP wiki page along the lines of what
we have for PPC, please simply ask :)

Regards,

Phill.

1. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lubuntu/Testing
2. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lubuntu/Testing/PPC%26Mac64
3. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuLTSP#Other_Useful_Resources

On 8 December 2012 21:17, John Hupp <lubuntu at prpcompany.com> wrote:

>  It was a slow-dawning realization for me as I continued to research
> this, but I too was concluding that I needed various xserver-xorg-video-*
> packages.  However, checking just now, I find that I already have the
> meta-package installed (xserver-xorg-video-all) that installs their whole
> suite.
>
> I see that the binary drivers fglrx and fglrx-updates are available but
> not installed.  So perhaps those are an option here, though I may have read
> somewhere that there may be some complications uninstalling those if they
> don't provide a solution.
>
> I'm now wondering how I can troubleshoot what xorg is doing.  On the
> server, I have /var/log/Xorg.0.log to look at, for instance, and though I
> don't know how to read that very well, I can tell that it selects a certain
> set of drivers to try to load, and provides various kinds of information
> about how they loaded (or didn't) and with what settings.  But in this case
> with LTSP clients, though I have syslog messages being forwarded from the
> clients to the server, that does not include the xorg log messages, right?
> If that's so, then perhaps I would want to ssh in to /var/log/Xorg.0.log on
> the client, but my current recollection is that ssh to the client fails
> when I get these stalled startups.  I think I need to double-check that.
>
> Can I force usage of a certain driver?  I read that this was supported
> with xorg.conf, but that does not exist by default now, and I think Xorg
> uses an automated configuration system called KMS, about which I know next
> to nothing.  But perhaps a configuration via xorg.conf is still
> respected/supported?
>
> -----------------
>
> In any case, as a result of running the lspci and lshw commands with
> several setups, I now have a better identification of a few of the hardware
> items:
>
>
> Worked:
> - PCI Matrox Millennium II MGA 2164W (PCI card)
> - Intel 82810E (integrated)
> - ATI RV200 QW [Radeon 7500]
> - ATI Rage 128 Pro AGP
> - ATI Rage 128 RF/SG AGP
>
> - HP VectaVL PC w/ integrated video, probably either:
>         Matrox G250 2X AGP
>         Matrox Millennium G400 4X AGP
>
> Partially Worked (got past the blank, black screen but then failed
> somehow):
> - Diamond STL III S540 XTRM32M 82 (AGP card)
> - Diamond Speedstar A50 with SiS 6326AGP chip (AGP card)
>
>
> Failed:
> - Trident 3DImage 9850 (AGP card)
> - S3 Trio64V+ (PCI card)
> - Diamond Viper with Power Weitek 9000/9001 and Oak Technology T9351 chips
> (PCI card)
> - ATI 210888GX [Mach64 GX] (PCI card)
> - ATI 3D Rage Pro AGP 1x/2x
>
>  On 12/8/2012 2:41 PM, Ioannis Vranos wrote:
>
> On Sat, Dec 8, 2012 at 7:17 PM, John Hupp <lubuntu at prpcompany.com> <lubuntu at prpcompany.com> wrote:
>
>  Thanks for having a look at this.
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto
> I didn't detail this fact in this thread, but for the cards that stall at a
> blank, black screen during a normal boot, I can configure LTSP to just boot
> to a shell (successfully) rather than to trying to load ldm, which results
> in the stalled boot.  From the sell I can use the commands mentioned in the
> article:
>     lspci | grep VGA
>     sudo lshw -C video
> I can get Lubuntu's identification of the current card and find out if it is
> supposed to be supported (from the next link).
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportComponentsVideoCards
> Although who knows if that supported-cards info will be current.  I thought
> I read somewhere about some distros that newer libraries were causing more
> regressions for older video hardware.
>
>  Had you a look at the xserver-xorg-video packages? For examples, see below.
>
>
>
>
>  Worked:
> - PCI Matrox Millennium II MGA 2164W (PCI card)
> - Intel 82810E (integrated)
> - An ATI-based AGP card sold as a MIC E-G012-02-1214(B)
> - ATI Rage 128 Pro (AGP card)
> - ATI Rage 128 (AGP card)
> - HP VectaVL PC w/ integrated video, probably either:
>         Matrox G250 2X AGP
>         Matrox Millennium G400 4X AGP
>
> Partially Worked (got past the blank, black screen but then failed somehow):
> - Diamond STL III S540 XTRM32M 82 (AGP card)
> - Diamond Spdstr A50 with SiS 6326AGP chip (AGP card)
>
> Failed:
> - Trident 3DImage 9850 (AGP card)
>
>  Have you installed the xserver-xorg-video-trident package?
>
>
>  - S3 Trio64V+ (PCI card)
>
>  Have you installed xserver-xorg-video-s3 for this? And so on.
>
>
>
>  - Diamond Viper with Power Weitek 9000/9001 and Oak Technology T9351 chips
> (PCI card)
> - ATI Mach64 (PCI card)
> - eMachines eTower 500i w/ integrated video, probably:
>         ATI Rage Pro Turbo 2X AGP
>
>
>
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>
>
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