video turns off just when os starts services when booting F8 after fresh install

[John Summerfield]

Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> Ferindo Middleton wrote:
>> I've recently upgraded my F6 to F8. The install finished ok but when the
>> computer boots it gets to the boot loader, finishes and starts booting
>> up the kernel and then when it gets to the point where it show the type
>> I for Interactive boot and just after it starts the udev service, the
>> screen goes blank and never returns. There was no indication during the
>> setup that there was a problem with the video card (I installed using
>> the graphical installer by the way).
>>
>> I'm a bit stumped because I can't really even look at any logs files or
>> anything because the screen goes blank before it finishes booting up to
>> Gnome. I tried maybe secure shelling in but that doesn't work either
>> because maybe ssh service might not be turned on by default or
>> something, not sure. I don't even know if the system finishes starting
>> other services or finishes other booting-up procedures because the
>> screen just goes pitch black just when the os starts turning on
>> services. I'm attempting to reinstall i rescue mode now but don't know
>> if this will help resolve the issue. Thanks in advance for any ideas.
>>
>> -- 
>> ferindo
>>
> When the system starts to boot, hit a key to bring up the Grub menu.
> Use e for edit, and then use the arrow keys to highlight the kernel
> line. Hit e to edit this line. If you put a 3 at the end of this
> line, and hit b for boot, you will boot into run level 3. (there is
> also an option you can remove so that you stay in the text mode the
> entire boot, but I don't remember it right now - I normally boot
> this machine that way. For me, the change would be from:

I don't think that will happen, the problem occurs when the 
initialisation scripts begin, not when X begins.

Specifying 'vga=6' instead of 'vga=794' or similar _might_ help.

The problem may be related to one I reported against Taroon beta (yeah, 
years ago) (it might have been nahant-beta, fewer years ago but still in 
the far distant past).

The problem I had was at that point it does the i18n initialisation, and 
clears the boot messages from the screen, all the way to the middle of a 
line where some escape (screen control) sequence is printed in the 
middle of the line. This occurs for me, now, with f8. On all occasions 
I've seen it, it's been on Intel graphics.

To me, it seems possible that you have a different manifestation of the 
same problem, presumably the kernel driver's mishandling an escape 
sequence that should be okay.

It happens at that point, the script's loading a font, and since I'm 
happy with the standard Kernel fond, I'm happy to turn that off. The 
easiest way is to change SYSFONT in this file:
10:35 [summer at numbat ~]$ cat /etc/sysconfig/i18n
LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
SYSFONT="latarcyrheb-sun16"
10:45 [summer at numbat ~]$
Doesn't matter what you change it to (deleting is okay, but changing it 
shows it was changed), lower case is fine.

If you can't get a visible screen to do that on, here are some things to 
try.\
1. Boot to runlevel 1. Edit the commandline as Karl described, entering 
"1" instead of "3."
2. If that does not work, edit the line as above, and instead of "3" 
type "init=/bin/bash" - this avoids all the initialisation, and gets you 
  in a shell script on a ro filesystem.
2.a You need to get the filesystem rw. Something like this:
# mount / -o remount,rw
2.b Edit /etc/sysconfig/i18n
# ex /etc/sysconfig/i18n -c /SYS/s=Y=y= -c :wq
2.c Get the filesystem to ro, just in case:
# mount / -o remount,ro
2.d reboot
# reboot

If you don't like the idea of gathering geek points that way, try your 
rescue CD or install CD in or even in install mode - switch to tty2 
_when you're in anaconda, any time before you repartition the disk, and 
poke around. Unless you mount and chroot into the F system, the tools 
available may be reduced functionally, but they are adequate.


-- 

Cheers
John

-- spambait
1aaaaaaa at coco.merseine.nu  Z1aaaaaaa at coco.merseine.nu
-- Advice
http://webfoot.com/advice/email.top.php
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

Please do not reply off-list