Mageia forum

I just bought a new Acer Aspire V3-771G-9823 and I'm trying to install Mageia.

Step 1. Switch from UEFI to legacy BIOS - COMPLETED
Step 2. Attempt to boot the GNOME LiveDVD using 'i915.modeset=0 noacpi' boot options as suggested for Mint. - ERROR

This is what is in the Xorg.0.log (some is snipped for brevety, and some is paraphrased)
Loads ~snip~

Code: Select all

/xorg/modules/drivers/intel-common/intel_drv.so
Attempts v4l loading using the Intel Integrated Graphics Chipsets: <huge list of chipsets, slightly larger for M3b3>
[ 168.930 ] (--) using VT number 2
[ 168.962 ] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for v4l
[ 168.966 ] (EE) No devices detected.
[ 168.966 ] Fatal server error:
[ 168.966 ] no screens found
[ 168.966 ] Please consult the The X.Org Foundation support at http://bugs.mageia.org for help.
[ 168.966 ] Please also check the log file at "/var/log/Xorg.0.log" for additional information.
[ 168.966 ]

And... well, this is where I'm stuck. Things that would be nice to see: Mageia 3 should be supporting UEFI boot, it does not... The video driver in Mageia 3 at least should be supporting this hardware (both Mint and Fedora do, with minor tweaks as noted in the "Mint" link above)

I'm unsure of what to try next, so suggestions are welcome. Ask me anything and I'll do whatever needs to be done to make this work. Thanks.

You may want to check if https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Mageia_2_Err ... rd_drivers still applies.

Ok, thanks for reminding me of that Dok... however it didn't help. I tried every variation of the options and I still can't get the thing to boot with a GUI.

The xorg message means that no screens are useable. This usually means that the module for your graphics card has not loaded.
At a terminal (as root) type

modinfo i915

There should be lots of information present about the Intel i915 kernel module, if not it is not present
on your system.
If present try and load it (as root) with

modprobe i915

If all goes well, you should be returned to command prompt.
The module is loaded from your xorg.conf file. There will be
a device section similar to:


Section "Device"
Identifier "device1"
VendorName "ATI Technologies Inc"
BoardName "ATI Radeon HD 5770"
Driver "fglrx"
Option "DPMS"
EndSection


The driver "fglrx" is the driver for my graphics card this will probably be i915 in your case.
You could try modifying /etc/X11/xorg.conf and then restarting X server or reboot.


Initially I had a similar problem trying to load catalyts driver. I was using the dualarch
700MB CD

I then went to this downloads page:

http://www.mageia.org/en/downloads/

Underneath the heading LiveCD's there are version for
KDE or Gnome 32 or 64 bit. These live CD's contain
the Intel, Nvidia and Catalyst driver. If the above suggestion
does not work try one of those live CD's.
Hope that helps

I'm already attempting to use the GNOME LiveDVD version, but I'll still try what you suggest later today. It should at least show me what is loaded if anything.

My laptop has a builtin Intel 915GM chipset. Its running PClinux at the moment and uses the i915 driver.
However it is called "intel" in xorg.conf
The correct name in /etc/X11/xorg.conf may also be Intel, but I'm running PClinux on my laptop,
Mageia on my desktop.

Well, upon checking modinfo i915 I get:

Code: Select all

filename: /lib/modules/3.3.6-desktop-2.mga2/kernel/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915.ko.xz
license: GPL and additional rights
description: Intel Graphics
author: Tungsten Graphics, Inc.
license: GPL and additional rights
srcversion: 2518DD96FDB541059B407BF
alias ~snip a huge list of pci aliases~
depends: drm,drm_kms_helper,i2c-core,video,button,i2c-algo-bit
intree: Y
vermagic: 3.3.6-desktop-2.mga2 SMP mod_unload modversions
parm: modeset:Use kernel modesetting [KMS] (0=DRM_I915_KMS from .config, =on, -1=force vga console preference [default]) (int)
parm: fbpercrtc:int
~snip more parm fields~

So it is obviously loaded...

Trying to manually modprobe it gets me:
ERROR: could not insert 'i915': No such device

Hopefully that gives a clue to the real problem here.

I'll try it with Mageia 3 if anyone thinks there is benefit to doing so, but since it wouldn't load at all using Mageia 2 and the behavior was the same between them I don't want to waste my time.

Modinfo shows that i915 is oresent with 3.3.6 kernel. However something is wrong
as it says no such device, so either path is wrong or maybe different kernel
was in use,
Did you try and download the CD version, not the DVD version as suggested previously?

I've been using the Live version all along... just been calling it a DVD instead of a CD because almost all of my Live discs are DVDs now (for example Fedora requires DVDs now for most of their Live editions) so it is just a bad habit. But yes, 64bit GNOME LiveCD is what I've been trying from the very beginning.

FWIW modinfo only shows more information about the module, by querying the module file.
It doesn't give any information if that module is loaded or not, also it doesn't load the module.

Well, i think disabling the nouveau-driver would be more helpful. So try "rdblacklist=nouveau nouveau.modeset=0 xdriver=intel" at kernel-command-line.

hth
Alf

Hey guys, I'll try the new suggestions by alf as soon as I can. I'm a student however (first semester of college! loving it!), and next week are exams. So I'm fairly busy right now and sadly my new laptop is just sitting on my desk collecting dust.

alf wrote:Well, i think disabling the nouveau-driver would be more helpful. So try "rdblacklist=nouveau nouveau.modeset=0 xdriver=intel" at kernel-command-line.

hth
Alf

Ok Alf,

I tried your suggestion and got the black screen again on the LiveCD. I've now booted the install DVD and... the installer can correctly create a gui environment. I am now installing from the DVD and we'll see what I get in terms of a graphical environment when it's done. Any more suggestions would be appreciated, and I'll post results back here as usual.

Thanks for all the help,
Dylan

Well, I'm not more alone

I had a similar problem with the live version (but KDE) and an intel card

https://forums.mageia.org/en/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4822

I realze it's been awhile, but I' just now getting around to trying to get a working gui on the now installed Mageia 2.

As I said, the installer gui worked fine. However, when attempting to boot (even with the options alf suggested) I still get the same black screen issue. I'm at a loss here. I'm now getting:
[root@laptop ~]# modprobe i915
ERROR: could not insert 'i915': No such device

In addition, I tried using xdriver=nouveau instead (without the blacklist of course) and it hasn't helped. I'm really at a loss here.

Have you tried xdriver=vesa ?
It won't be pretty but it may get you to a desktop.

I did try vesa as well, and I still got the same issue: no gui. When trying to startx from the shell, I of course get the error about i915 since that is what is set in the xorg.conf file. I actually just tried the vesa about 15 minutes ago again, with a few different boot options and still no go.

So... reading about someone having the same kinds of issues on TinyCore and Arch... I see this many references to needing Bumblebee...
And low and behold: https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Bumblebee

Sadly I'm out of time to screw with this tonight, but I'll give it a try ASAP.

So, I'm not getting anywhere with any kind of sucess on getting Mageia to work on the new laptop. I can't keep wasting time, so it looks like I need to switch to another distro. Which is sad, I've long been a Mandriva user and switched to Mageia very early in Mageia 2. Thanks for the help guys.

I had a similar issue when I loaded Mageia 3 and my Lenovo labtop Intel card. Installation from DVD worked fine but when I tried to boot got a black screen aswell. What I did to get to my desktop, I hooked up external monitor via hdmi and got to desktop and then unplugged hdmi. KDE recognized my labtop monitor and let me save default output to my monitor. That worked but only issue I have now is on first boot my KDM login is very dark to the point I can just see the shadow. I type in my login Mageia boots up then all is well. Since Im the only one that uses this labtop might have it login automatically until it is corrected.

I was running Fedora 18 prior to this and now thinking about it,once I upgraded the kernel I got a black screen on boot on this labtop as well, I didnt do any troubleshotting though was looking for a excuse to try Mageia now thinking about it possible issue with new how Intel cards are being detected

I'll give your solution a try before I give up. I really, really like Mageia, and I would prefer not to leave for another distro.

lorenzo's idea of using an external monitor is getting me some result. If I hook an external monitor (VGA) I can boot and get a graphical environment! If I don't, it still black screens. I can remove then external monitor once the login screen comes up.

@lorenzo: What do you mean by "recognized my laptop monitor and let me save default output to my monitor". Can you give more detail about what steps you took there?

So, I can get my desktop if I have an external monitor hooked up. Once I'm at the login screen I can unhook the external monitor. What would make that work and not the laptop display? Is the laptop display not getting detected or something?

What I did was, I didnt remove the external display until I was at my desktop and the environment completely booted up. In my situation once I got a screen on the external monitor my labtop screen would come on as well ie: mirror effect. Does your labtop have a hdmi out aswell? Did your labtop screen ever come on while doing this? Because once I disconnected the external monitor, the KDE display control module popped up and allowed me to choose my default output which I selected labtop and pretty much all is well now except my extremely dark login screen

lorenzo111 wrote:What I did was, I didnt remove the external display until I was at my desktop and the environment completely booted up. In my situation once I got a screen on the external monitor my labtop screen would come on as well ie: mirror effect. Does your labtop have a hdmi out aswell? Did your labtop screen ever come on while doing this? Because once I disconnected the external monitor, the KDE display control module popped up and allowed me to choose my default output which I selected labtop and pretty much all is well now except my extremely dark login screen

I have HDMI and VGA out both, and I've followed what you did on both. However once I'm at my desktop and remove the external display I don't get any popup. Likely because I'm using GNOME (I hate KDE). I've gone into the settings and I don't see a default output option there at all. I may have to boot into a KDE session just to see what happens. I'll do that shortly and report back.