[SOLVED] Black screen after performing system updates.

[rt]

Just installed Mageia 2 for the first time and I was very impressed how polished and professional it looks. After the install I decided to check for system updates and found that there were a lot of outstanding updates. I decided to select all and proceeded to download and install the updates. After the updates completed I was prompted to restart my computer. The computer restarted and I was met with the initial Mageia boot screen then the screen turns black and stays black. The monitor is on and not in sleep mode. I can not exit to a command line. What a shame because Mageia seemed like the tightest distro I've encountered thus far. I suppose I could boot my Mageia live cd and access and change some config files on my install but that's so old school for an ALMOST top notch distro.

[morgano]

Welcome to Mageia
Feel free to introduce yourself at viewtopic.php?f=5&t=15

In the boot screen, can you select safe boot (or similar) and get to a command line?

If so, run drakx11 and try other graphics.
You use tab to tab between buttons and lists, then up/down...
select graphic card then scroll to what you think should work, etc.

A basic choice that should work (albeit not fastest) is way down in the list: Xorg:vesa

Select, exit, then try it;
either issue "reboot", or log in as yourself, (su yourusername) and then issue startx

If you need more help tell us your hardware and what you have tried so far.


BTW, For other mageia system tools you can type mcc at the command line and you will launch text version of the Mageia Control Centre.

Edited for clarity

[djennings]

A possible reason you got the black screen could be that you installed from the LiveCD which contains proprietary video drivers, but did not enable the 'non-free' online repository before doing the updates.

Doing updates without enabling the non-free repository will update the kernel, but not the video driver and lead to a black screen on the next login.

At the boot screen you should see a new entry to boot with the old kernel. I think you will find if you boot the old kernel it will start normally. You could then enable the non-free (and tainted) repositories using Mageia ControlCentre>Software>SoftwareMedia and then run updates again to get the latest video driver.

Once you have non-free media enabled and are running on the latest kernel go through the video driver GUI in Mageia Control Centre>Hardware again just to be sure you are using the best driver.

[claire]

Posted at the same time as djennings but I'll post it anyway

You probably need to enable the nonfree media (Nonfree Release and Nonfree Updates) which contains the nonfree nvidia/ati firmware and drivers needed by many modern graphics cards. Try ctrl-alt-f2 to get to a TTY.

You can check your enabled medias with: urpmq --list-media active

There has been a new kernel since Mageia 2 was released which is probably missing them. You can try to manually select your old kernel when booting or use cli.
Once you've enabled them you should update again.

These need to be run as root, the first two enable the nonfree medias and the last updates the medias and installs any updated packages:
urpmi.update --no-ignore "Nonfree Updates"
urpmi.update --no-ignore "Nonfree Release"
urpmi --auto-update

You may find your media names have somehting like (distrib 5) etc on the end, in which case you will need to use the proper name when you enable them. It's alot easier using MCC.

Once rebooted the kernel will rebuild any new dkms modules so the boot may take a while as it does so.

[rt]

Thanks for such prompt responses!

I followed morgano's suggestions and performed a reboot. Now I get a grub> prompt. Luckily I'm just testing this distro, seems like more
work is to be done. I would highly recommend that if non-free proprietary drivers are installed the system update should automatically update
the existing drivers without first having to enable a non-free repository. There was no warning of this although I updated my system unattended.

Thanks for your time! I look forward to trying out Mageia 3.

[isadora]

Please rt, mark your topic [SOLVED].

Thanks in advance!!!

[camelrider]

Very valuable information! Thanks.

[djennings]

I would highly recommend that if non-free proprietary drivers are installed the system update should automatically update
the existing drivers without first having to enable a non-free repository

Good point. We are in the process of Beta testing Mageia 3 at the moment. I will take a look and see if this issue has been addressed.

[djennings]

I checked out Mageia 3 beta 1. It still does the same thing so I have raised a bug report
https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8379
Cross your fingers and it might get fixed

[Ken-Bergen]

I checked out Mageia 3 beta 1. It still does the same thing so I have raised a bug report
https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8379
Cross your fingers and it might get fixed

It appears to be a regression as installing from the Mageia1 LiveCD, then letting sources be set up at first boot results in "NonFree" and "NonFree Updates" being set as active.