[Solved] Mageia 6 won't boot after nvidia driver installed

[mark9117]

I installed Mageia 6 on my HTPC and things were going reasonably well. Lots of annoying things in KDE's plasma desktop. Display was okay, but resolution wasn't quite right. All the text was really small and the desktop was just a bit wider than my TV. So I installed the proprietary Nvidia driver (for the GeForce 9600 GT) which is what I've always used.

I rebooted to initialize that driver and ran into some trouble. The system boots to an ncurses dialog that tells me that the system has to reboot because of a display driver change. I select "okay" or just wait 30 seconds, and reboot it. It boots to the ncurses dialog that tells me that the system has to reboot because of a display driver change, etc.

I select "cancel" and it boots to "Starting Terminate Plymouth Boot Screen..." and hangs there. The drive access light flickers, but the boot process does not proceed.



I've been rebooting the thing for more than an hour and I've had enough. It's 2:00 am and I have to work tomorrow. I'll give it another pass tomorrow night. I'm anticipating the very real possibility of a reinstall from scratch unless somebody here knows something.

All information/suggestions appreciated.

Thanks.

Update: Just noticed that the machine did boot enough to get ssh working. Found this in the journal:

Code: Select all

Jul 29 02:07:12 pvr kernel: ---[ end trace c7e2bdd3dd63942f ]---
Jul 29 02:07:12 pvr kernel: NVRM: failed to register procfs!
Jul 29 02:07:12 pvr kernel: NVRM: The NVIDIA probe routine was not called for 1 device(s).
Jul 29 02:07:12 pvr kernel: NVRM: This can occur when a driver such as:
                            NVRM: nouveau, rivafb, nvidiafb or rivatv
                            NVRM: was loaded and obtained ownership of the NVIDIA device(s).
Jul 29 02:07:12 pvr kernel: NVRM: Try unloading the conflicting kernel module (and/or
                            NVRM: reconfigure your kernel without the conflicting
                            NVRM: driver(s)), then try loading the NVIDIA kernel module
                            NVRM: again.
Jul 29 02:07:12 pvr kernel: NVRM: No NVIDIA graphics adapter probed!
Jul 29 02:07:12 pvr kernel: [drm] Module unloaded


I'm really beat right now and have no idea how to accomplish any of this at the command line. Heading to bed. Back at it tomorrow night.

[doktor5000]

See https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Mageia_6_Err ... g_graphics - you might need to add nokmsboot as boot option.

[mark9117]

See https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Mageia_6_Err ... g_graphics - you might need to add nokmsboot as boot option.

I appreciate that pointer Herr Doktor, but I looked up my notes from a similar issue with this box last time I installed it. I had to blacklist the nouveau driver and then dracut (dracut -f -H --xz) something. That got it to boot and then I had to deal with a faulty dpi setting that made the text on my 42" monitor microscopic. I got that fixed. and this is all after I chased the SSH key thing down.

It looks pretty good now that I've got it 99% or so. It was a considerable struggle. The kind of thing that makes me dread upgrading the rest of these server boxes and my desktop. It also looks like I'm going to have to settle for some changes. For example, Krunner no longer has a dropdown history. This makes it hard to operate my HTPC without a keyboard. That one is kind of hard. I'm looking for an alternative, but haven't stumbled onto one. Suggestions welcome.

It also looks like the YAWP weather widget is gone.I really like that thing.

So the struggle continues, but I think I may be winning.

[doktor5000]

I had to blacklist the nouveau driver and then dracut (dracut -f -H --xz) something.

For reference, that is not necessary.

[mark9117]

I had to blacklist the nouveau driver and then dracut (dracut -f -H --xz) something.

For reference, that is not necessary.

Which part? The blacklist or the dracut?
And while not necessary, it was effective.

[doktor5000]

Which part? The blacklist or the dracut?

Both.

[mark9117]

Which part? The blacklist or the dracut?

Both.

Okay, so what should I have done to resolve this?

[doktor5000]

Read the errata? Both causes for the endless boot loop and the workarounds are mentioned there.
Which is what I pointed to earlier.

[mark9117]

Okay, fair cop. I guess I'll have to stumble along with what I've got because I'm that kind of stupid.