[DONE] I cannot boot into mageia

[doktor5000]

Greetings,

I just restarted my computer this evening only to find out that I could not start my mageia 2 system.

I start the computer, I see the grub screen, I boot into the default, I see the mageia logo screen but instead of seeing the sign in screen I see a blank screen with the following message and the computer just hangs there:

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Failed to start LSB: ATI EventsDaemon
See 'systemctl status atieventsd.Service' for details
Failed to start Wait for Plymouth Boot Screen to Quit
See 'systemctl status plymouth-quit-wait. service' for details

I tried going in with different kernel versions but the same thing happened and when I use safemode I get to a textmode prompt but when I type kdm or kde nothing happens.

Thanks,

Michel

[marja]

Greetings,

I just restarted my computer this evening only to find out that I could not start my mageia 2 system.

I think I've seen that error in a bug report. Do you have an ATI Radeon video card? If so, please read https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Mageia_2_Errata#AMD.2FATI, and take the steps suggested there.

[michel]

I have been using my installation for a couple of weeks now without a problem. This is not the first boot from a live CD / DVD and the issue seems to be with Plymouth. I tried adding xdriver=radeon but with the same results.

Thanks,

Michel

[marja]

I am aware that you had used your installation without problems. The reason that I think it is probably an issue with the video driver is, that the error you get is the same as the error users reported when they couldn't boot into Mageia after install because of a wrong video driver.

For example: https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5859

But you are right, it would have been better to first type

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systemctl status plymouth-quit-wait.service

at the text mode prompt and see what the output is.

Btw, when I referred to the steps from the link I gave before, I meant the steps starting with "boot in safe mode"

Cheers,
marja

[michel]

OK. I booted with safe mode and I entered your code at the text mode prompt and got the following:

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plymouth-quit-wait.service - Wait for plymouth Boot Screen to Quit
Loaded: loaded (/lib/system/plymouth-quit-wait.service; static)
Active: inactive (dead)
CGroup: name=systemd:/system/plymouth-quit-wait.service

Thanks,

Michel

[marja]

Thanks

What is the output of

systemctl status prefdm.service

if it is dead, can you try

systemctl start prefdm.service

[michel]

Sorry for delay but I did not have access to another computer.

The first command showed the display manager was dead. I started it with the second command and then requested the status and got the following:

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prefdm.service - Display Manager
Loaded: loaded(/lib/systemd/system/prefdm.service;static)
Active: active (running) since -------
Main: PID 1678 (kdm)
CGroup: name=systemd:/system/prefdm.service
L 1678 /usr/bin/kdm -nodaemon
Se 09 18:40:36 localhost.localdomain kdm [1678]: x server died during stratup :xserver for dispaly:0 can...d

I appreciate your help. Do you think we can cure this? Is there a way to fix the system with the liveCD? Should I reinstall and be donne with it?

Thanks,

Michel

[tom_]

start drakx11 and choose xorg-vesa
then roboot and you should have a basic desktop.

[marja]

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prefdm.service - Display Manager
Loaded: loaded(/lib/systemd/system/prefdm.service;static)
Active: active (running) since -------
Main: PID 1678 (kdm)
CGroup: name=systemd:/system/prefdm.service
L 1678 /usr/bin/kdm -nodaemon
Se 09 18:40:36 localhost.localdomain kdm [1678]: x server died during stratup :xserver for dispaly:0 can...d

I appreciate your help. Do you think we can cure this? Is there a way to fix the system with the liveCD? Should I reinstall and be donne with it?

Well, this seems like a graphic card issue again. However, a few days ago, there were a bunch of KDE updates, kdm was among them. Maybe somehow you only got part of the updates and there is something missing. So please first try (as root)

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urpmi --auto-update

If that doesn't help, you can look at the

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/var/log/Xorg.0.log

and

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/var/log/Xorg.0.log.old

And you could still do those steps from the errata I mentioned before.
Oh, and I read about someone with a similar issue, who had an extremely large .xsession-errors in his home directory. Although it doesn't make sense to me (X dies before you can even try to login as user), I'll mention what solved his problem: removing this large .xsession-errors he had. To have a reference: mine is 363KB. His was some GB!

[michel]

Running the equivalent of apt -get should help but how do you connect to the internet from a text mode prompt?

Michel

[marja]

Running the equivalent of apt -get should help but how do you connect to the internet from a text mode prompt?

Michel

If you're not connected yet, run as root:

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systemctl start network.service

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urpmi --auto-update

also as root, will pull all updates in

If you want to install a certain video driver, you can do that with

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urpmi nameofdriver

(assumed that the repository is enabled where you need to get it from)

[michel]

Just wanted to thank you marja for your help, unfortunately my system was broken and needed a re-install, wish I did keeping the home directory. The result was an unstable system and an external HD (with my backups and important data!) that could not be mounted.

So I decided to do a new clean install and this time with a Debian based distro, Kubuntu.

Maegia is a very nice distro, very elegant but still a bit flawed and under documented specially for someone who is more familiar with Debian.

Thank you and who knows, maybe I will be back soon.

Michel

[marja]

Thank you and who knows, maybe I will be back soon.

You are very welcome

I hope Kubuntu will work as expected, so even though I'd like to see you back soon, I hope it won't be because of another disappointment.

Mageia 1 was the most stable Linux release I have ever seen. Shifting to systemd and having new KDE and Gnome3 seem to have made Mageia 2 a bit less stable and, unfortunately, for some users a lot less stable. The first reviews I heard and read about Mageia3alpha1 were positeve, though, so there is hope

In the meantime, we will keep working on the documentation. When Mageia was born, we couldn't "fork" the official Mandriva documentation for legal reasons. So our documentation had to be written from scratch. A year ago, documentation team was started, later https://wiki.mageia.org was started, too and then the official documentation https://doc.mageia.org/. However, still a lot remains to be done.

Anyone reading this and wanting to help: feel free to write in our wiki if you see some documentation is missing and you know how to write it. It is also possible to help with the official Mageia documentation, for instance with the help pages for MCC that are currently being written. A draft can be found here http://docteam.mageia.nl/en/MCC/content/. Please contact documentation team if you want to help to write, proofread or translate them https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Documentation_team#How_to_contact.2Fjoin_the_team, or if you want some guidance about how to write in our wiki.

[Wiseacre]

Hello Mageia folks,
It's just story related to this topic, not a current problem.

Yesterday friend of mine asked me to install linux distribution on his notebook (Compaq Presario CQ56-115DX) with ATI (yeah-yaeh). I was curious what to choose and found downloaded Mageia-2-rc-i586-DVD.iso on my desktop. I took a USB stick and dd'ed iso. Installation was perfectly nice (like in old time of Madriva). But after installation my graphical system loading fails. I asked myself what the hack with that user-frendly distribution and guessed it's all about rc, probably it was fixed in release version, huh. Downloaded, dded, installed, booted and the same result:

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…
See 'systemctl status plymouth-quit-wait. service' for details

Googled, found this tread, tried following:

systemctl start prefdm.service

and it starts X server, but with video issue (I'm not sure how correctly to describe this pixels clutter, pardon me). I consider it's video driver detection bug. Unfortunately, my friend was in a hurry, so another distribution was installed instead of Mageia.

I hope next time anyone else won't face this issues anymore. Feel free to ask me any extra information if you want to investigate this bug.

Sorry for long and boring story. Keep rocking, guys!

[marja]

Hello Mageia folks,
It's just story related to this topic, not a current problem.

Yesterday friend of mine asked me to install linux distribution on his notebook (Compaq Presario CQ56-115DX) with ATI (yeah-yaeh). I was curious what to choose and found downloaded Mageia-2-rc-i586-DVD.iso on my desktop. ............................

.................... Feel free to ask me any extra information if you want to investigate this bug.

Sorry for long and boring story. Keep rocking, guys!

Thanks for the feedback

On which mirror did you find the Mga2rc iso? I'm amazed the rc is still available at all.
Did your read https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Mageia_2_Errata#Proprietary_graphics_card_drivers before you started installing?

[wintpe]

I think the biggest problem with mga2 is that it tries to detect and install a non proprietry driver at install.

that and the missing network firmware from the DVD.

I think if mga3 is to continue to be a free of proprietry driver disk, then vesa should always be the default driver, we should not be constantly asking people have they checked the errata when we know full well the DVD they just downloaded is going to break their install.

most of them, are now trying to read the errata with a broken install, the only system they have.

and most of them will struggle with text mode , and as we have seen --------> debuntoo here we come.

just my opinion.

regards peter

[Wiseacre]

On which mirror did you find the Mga2rc iso? I'm amazed the rc is still available at all.

I downloaded that for a long time before when it was fresh release.

Did your read https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Mageia_2_Errata#Proprietary_graphics_card_drivers before you started installing?

No. Should I? Why other distribution has no this kind of issue, but Mageia. I' m wondering...
Actually I'm using archlinux, so I understand what is reading wiki and do respect people who take care about articles, nevertheless I installed Mageia to avoid it (reading wiki ≠ save time).

One more thing: I don't understand following steps:

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go in the emergency console
run XFdrake and chose Vesa

If emergency console is simply console, it's ok. However I didn't get how to run XFdrake in console mode.

Anyway, wintpe posted wise things. I guessed you should review your driver policy to make your customer more satisfied.

I think the biggest problem with mga2 is that it tries to detect and install a non proprietry driver at install.

that and the missing network firmware from the DVD.

I think if mga3 is to continue to be a free of proprietry driver disk, then vesa should always be the default driver, we should not be constantly asking people have they checked the errata when we know full well the DVD they just downloaded is going to break their install.

most of them, are now trying to read the errata with a broken install, the only system they have.

and most of them will struggle with text mode , and as we have seen --------> debuntoo here we come.

just my opinion.

regards peter

++

[michel]

Just out of curiosity @marja what is it that made mageia the number 3 or 4 most popular distro? I used it because it looked clean and simple but had to move away because of the serious crash I had after a major upgrade (could not trust it to be my production distro) are you running the risk of NOT retaining all that influx of new comers?


Michel

[marja]

On which mirror did you find the Mga2rc iso? I'm amazed the rc is still available at all.

I downloaded that for a long time before when it was fresh release.

Ah, that explains it, so there is no erroneous mirror.

Did your read https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Mageia_2_Errata#Proprietary_graphics_card_drivers before you started installing?

No. Should I?

Wouldn't it have saved you time, in the end?

One more thing: I don't understand following steps:

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go in the emergency console
run XFdrake and chose Vesa

If emergency console is simply console, it's ok.

It is simply were you end up when you boot into safe mode

However I didn't get how to run XFdrake in console mode.

Just typing

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XFdrake

and hitting enter would have started that tool.

Anyway, wintpe posted wise things. I guessed you should review your driver policy to make your customer more satisfied.

It was decided that from Mageia 3 on, non free drivers will be available, for who wants to use them, on the classic DVD iso's.
https://www.mageia.org/pipermail/mageia-dev/2012-October/019137.html

[marja]

Just out of curiosity @marja what is it that made mageia the number 3 or 4 most popular distro? I used it because it looked clean and simple but had to move away because of the serious crash I had after a major upgrade (could not trust it to be my production distro) are you running the risk of NOT retaining all that influx of new comers?
Michel

Well, Mageia 1 was rock solid and very fast, and yes, it was very clean. That is what hooked me
It wouldn't surprise me if that hooked a lot more people, and that many of them decided to stick with Mageia even if the big changes in Mageia 2 (systemd, Gnome3 and new KDE) did make it less solid.

For me Mageia 2 works acceptable now, even though after I had just installed it I had a hard freeze every few days (all when using FF). I never managed to find the cause, there was nothing in any log, but it happens very seldom now - maybe 1 time over the last 4 weeks - and I can live with it.

It is true that we'll probably lose some users because of Mageia 1 EOL. However, if Mageia wouldn't develop, we'd end up losing all users.

To Mageia users who read this: the best way to help Mageia to be as stable and good as possible in spite of big changes, is to start contributing to a Mageia team.
Mageia is made by volunteers, and every user can pitch in and help http://www.mageia.org/en/contribute/
There is something to do for everyone who has some (or more) time. We have contributors with very different amounts of Linux experience and with very different talents. Artists, developers, first time users, translators, testers, documenters and many others. Whoever reads this and would like to help: we need you! Together we can do more to improve Mageia

[Wiseacre]

Just typing

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XFdrake

and hitting enter would have started that tool.

I wonder when people use capitalization for console command. Thank you for your elucidation!

Sorry for annoying posts. I'm currently localizator of some upstream projects to my language, so let's say I'm already in. See you next time when I face someone new in Linux and he/she asked me to install something user-friendly.

[doktor5000]

Just typing

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XFdrake

and hitting enter would have started that tool.

I wonder when people use capitalization for console command.

You can also use drakx11