Problem with no display on 10.04 beta2 server

[Alvin]

On Sunday 11 April 2010 12:16:55 James Gray wrote:
> On 11/04/2010, at 8:06 PM, Alvin wrote:
> > On Sunday 11 April 2010 11:59:58 James Gray wrote:
> >> On 11/04/2010, at 7:15 PM, Janåke Rönnblom wrote:
> >>> I have an IBM 3550 server where I have installed the 10.04 beta2 server
> >>> on. On reboot after the BIOS messages all I get is a blinking cursor
> >>> and then it disappears. If I try ALT+F1/F2, ENTER and so nothing
> >>> happens no login prompt nothing!
> >>> 
> >>> Connecting through ssh works but I fear the day when I need to
> >>> troubleshoot the server at the console...
> >>> 
> >>> -J
> >> 
> >> What happens if you ssh in, edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and modify the
> >> default kernel parameters to remove "quiet splash" (or if that fails,
> >> try include "text"), then reboot.  See if that makes any difference to
> >> the result. Might be telling grandma how to suck eggs, but this little
> >> trick has revealed volumes in the past.  I know it should "Just Work"
> >> but this might help isolate the fault.  My initial guess is there is
> >> something a bit henky with the frame buffer support.
> > 
> > In the past, it might have, but I tried this on a desktop edition of
> > Lucid beta and it was a bad idea. Boot halted (because of the bug where
> > you can't mount more than 4 lvm volumes.)
> > 
> > Without splash and quiet, you can see the messages, but not the buttons
> > you have to press to skip mounting the volume.
> 
> But if it gets as far as mounting the file systems, surely it's well into
> the boot process at that stage...unless you have 4 LVM volumes for the
> root file system (??).  Not 100% sure I'm following you - booting with the
> "quiet splash" you see nothing, and other than that, boots fine.  So how
> would removing them to see the boot process cause the filesystem mounts to
> fail??

Yes, it is starting to mount filesystems, but something could go wrong.

Some examples:
Lucid beta will not succeed if you have more than 4 lvm filesystem defined in 
/etc/fstab. [https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/557909]
(Also, if you have defined mount points for snapshots, the upgrade to lucid 
will have converted them to UUID's. Bad idea, because snapshots have the same 
UUID as the filesystem where they are a snapshot from, so they could get 
mounted in the wrong place. This will not halt boot, but could cause 
confusion.)
Or, you could have defined dhcp in /etc/network/interfaces, which will cause 
resolv.conf to stay empty. If you mount network shares by hostname, this will 
halt your boot process. [https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/558384]

With splash, plymouth will ask what to do. (for example, skip mounting that 
filesystem, or go into recovery shell,..)
So, if anything happens, you will just sit there if you have no splash, but 
you will see the error messages better.