I upgraded my old Apple iBook G4 (PowerPC architecture!) from Debian Wheezy to Jessie. And I was greeted with a black screen. I rebooted and watched the text scrolling by. Something failed about Load Kernel Modules. Something else failed about LSB. Nothing serious? The text console login prompt, and then a black screen and the ventilator blowing.
I had never figured out how to switch from X11 to the consoles on my iBook. But now I was determined to figure it out! I had seen the prompt, after all. It turns out that I need to press `fn + ctrl + alt + cmd + F1`.
OK. Looks like no GDM3? I’m going to install the display manager `slim` and hope that this is enough. Time passes. Wow, I am greeted by a display that looks like a CGA display with four colors? Maybe six colors? It’s terrible. But I see a Debian logo, and a user name prompt. I’m logging in!
And... All the colors are wrong. I feel like my entire desktop has been resampled. Ough! My eyes! I’m going to install `xdm`... Rebooting... And the graphics are unchanged. Damn!
When I switch to the console, run Emacs, and call `M-x list-colors-display` I see the colors just fine even if the entire screen is terribly dark. Answering `Linux nouveau.noaccel=1` to the second boot prompt also didn’t solve my problem.
For the moment I uninstalled all display managers (no xdm, no gdm3) and so the system just shows the console login prompts when I boot. Too bad the damn stuff is so dark I can’t use the laptop during the daylight.
#Debian #Administration #Software
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Claudia is using her laptop and so I’m rebooting the old iBook G4. Upgrading the system. Who knows, perhaps something has been fixed?
Also, I’m using lxde.
This is what fixed my color problem: enable KMS in `/etc/yaboot.conf`. It really works. I am amazed. I had given up on this machine.
image=/boot/vmlinux label=Linux read-only initrd=/boot/initrd.img append="quiet splash radeon.modeset=1 video=radeonfb:off video=offb:off video=1024x768-32 radeon.agpmode=-1" ...
Don’t forget to run `sudo ybin -v` when you’re done.
I found a solution to the super dark console on SuperUser: *Zapping the PRAM*.
1. Restart the Mac and before the grey screen appears, hold down `Command + Option + P + R`
2. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
3. Release the keys.
Uh, today I returned to this laptop and it didn’t work. During the boot process the screen turns black and stays black. Time for some experiments:
+--------------------------------+---------+-------+------------------------------+ | Boot Parameter | Console | X11 | Notes | +--------------------------------+---------+-------+------------------------------+ | none | ok | 8bit | | | none | ok | 8bit | | | video=1024x768-32 | ok | 8bit | | | radeon.modeset=1 | ok | good | locks up after a few moments | | ... | ? | ? | | | quiet splash radeon.modeset=1 | black | black | | | video=radeonfb:off | | | | | video=offb:off | | | | | video=1024x768-32 | | | | | radeon.agpmode=-1 | | | | +--------------------------------+---------+-------+------------------------------+
– Alex Schroeder 2015-10-09 12:09 UTC
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I’ve been looking at the systemctl status reports. I’ve got *systemd-modules-load*: `Failed to find module 'apm_emu'` and *pommed*: `Failed to start LSB: Apple laptops hotkeys event handler.` I’m guessing these two are not related to X11 freezing.
– Alex Schroeder 2015-10-09 12:53 UTC