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[SOLVED] Virtual console, framebuffer, NVidia trouble ?

Linux Kernel, Network, and Services configuration.
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Sante
Posts: 17
Joined: 2018-12-09 04:17

[SOLVED] Virtual console, framebuffer, NVidia trouble ?

#1 Post by Sante »

Hello, when I switch to a virtual console and back to the desktop I experience trouble like diagonal lines on the desktop (like if the desktop was fragmented in triangles) that appear for an instant and then after a minute or so programs like firefox and konqueror start to crash and the next thing I know is that the desktop froze altogether and there is no way out but resettting the machine. Nvidia drivers from nonfree are installed for a geforce gt 630 card from my old pc running wheezy (it worked like a charm until the motherboard eventually died, I just passed to stretch on the new pc). The current machine is a brand new core i7/msi h110m pro-vh/kingston ssd and my 8 gb ram (2 sticks) tested fine in memtest. I believe there must be an issue with framebuffer, attempted to edit /etc/default/grub and reconfigure grub using

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GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="vga=normal nofb nomodeset video=vesafb:off i915.modeset=0"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="vga=normal nofb nomodeset video=vesafb:off i915.modeset=0"
but only managed to see the boot messages (deleted "quiet" while being at that) and /dev/fb0 is still active, so the question is: can I disable framebuffer completely, and is this advisable ? I am at a loss now.
Last edited by Sante on 2019-07-18 13:46, edited 2 times in total.

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llivv
Posts: 5340
Joined: 2007-02-14 18:10
Location: cold storage

Re: Virtual console, framebuffer, NVidia trouble ?

#2 Post by llivv »

Oh for the days when we could control some sfuff....
If you look at the kernel version 4 and above command-line parameters
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v4.14/a ... eters.html
you'll only see

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vga=
still available from the list you posted, and vga=ask dosen't work, keep_bootcon didn't keep the bootcon at the frambuffer switch either, for me anyways.... fb0 is the kernels framebuffer of choice for screen, AFAICT.

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~# dmesg | grep -i vga
This thread may or may not help for nvidia-settings and possible other clues.
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=139043
framebuffer stuff - you have to find a flavor that suits your needs or roll your own.
In memory of Ian Ashley Murdock (1973 - 2015) founder of the Debian project.

Sante
Posts: 17
Joined: 2018-12-09 04:17

Re: Virtual console, framebuffer, NVidia trouble ?

#3 Post by Sante »

hm, I see. well thanks for now for your help. I'm thinking about just quitting using nvidia cards

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llivv
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Re: Virtual console, framebuffer, NVidia trouble ?

#4 Post by llivv »

If you really want to disable (modesetting <default>) use nomodeset
no guarantee what the system does with modesetting disabled.

nomodeset doesn't work the way it used to with ver 2 and 3 kernels
but nomodeset will partially disable KMS during the framebuffer switch while the kernel is loading.

check dmesg and compare what it looks like with nomodeset enabled,
and compare it to a normal boot.
I haven't been able to get the old i915.modeset=1 to work at all with ver 4 kernels

And, I wouldn't edit /etc/grub/defaults until you know what exactly what you want in there.

I'd put grub defaults back the way it was before you editied it
then test nomodeset at boot in the grub menu by pressing the e key in the grub screen

add the nomodeset kernel argument to the end of the line that looks like this

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linux /boot/vmlinuz-4.9.0-4-686-pae root=/dev/sda1 ro quiet
and after adding nomodeset on the end of the line

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[/linux /boot/vmlinuz-4.9.0-4-686-pae root=/dev/sda1 ro quiet nomodeset
hit

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CTRL +x
to start the boot
In memory of Ian Ashley Murdock (1973 - 2015) founder of the Debian project.

Sante
Posts: 17
Joined: 2018-12-09 04:17

Re: Virtual console, framebuffer, NVidia trouble ?

#5 Post by Sante »

ok so i reverted the grub file to its original state and I still get system crashes peppered with lines like

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rcu_sched detected stalls on CPUs/tasks

and inability to even shutdown properly, having repeated timeouts of 90 secs. for closing various tasks. This is a brand new core i7 based machine with a MSI motherboard and has run from the start under psu, should be a software issue i hope but still cannot figure out what's wrong with it. installed various firmware packages, in the uefi firmware i applied the default settings which I hope should be a failsafe config, checked that nouveau module was blacklisted, ran fine for awhile but now I'm still at a total loss. what log files should i check and for what ?
shocked that debian is giving me such a hard time after so many years :( . And btw the seller installed Ubuntu on this machine when i told him i needed an empty machine to run linux on it and even ubuntu had issues , i thought it was just a bad install. not so sure now. memory appears to be alright though.

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llivv
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Re: Virtual console, framebuffer, NVidia trouble ?

#6 Post by llivv »

what kernel ?

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uname -a
what nvidia package versions

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 aptitude search '~i nvidia*'
yeah sorry I should have read more thoroughly,,,,,,

what version of Debian? Stretch (stable)

I wouldn't know one version of Ubuntu from another, I remember installing a Live experimental container image from one of the devs, on top of a minimal Debian install, 10 years ago. That was enough for me.

Others may benefit if you list the Ubuntu version as well. :wink:
In memory of Ian Ashley Murdock (1973 - 2015) founder of the Debian project.

Sante
Posts: 17
Joined: 2018-12-09 04:17

Re: Virtual console, framebuffer, NVidia trouble ?

#7 Post by Sante »

output of uname

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4.9.0-8-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.9.135-1 (2018-11-11) x86_64 GNU/Linux
during installation I chose kernel 4.9.0-8, guessed it was the most up-to-date.


querying using aptitude gave me a segmentation fault.
however /proc/driver/nvidia/version lists

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NVRM version: NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module  390.87  Tue Aug 21 12:33:05 PDT 2018
GCC version:  gcc version 6.3.0 20170516 (Debian 6.3.0-18+deb9u1) 
I'm starting to fear that my hardware could be faulty from the beginning or just... cursed.
motherboard is a MSI H110M PRO-VH. CPU, core i7-7700@3.60-4.20 GHz. One Kingston SSD 240 Gb drive, weekly trimmed by custom script. My old 250 Gb drive holding usr and var, plus a large XFS partition data which is my old home. Nvidia gt630.

Funny that the single time i went that extra mile for a more expensive, greater and faster system It pestered me more than any other I ever owned. The ten year old battered laptop running vista i got handed as a "payment" of sorts for tech support that served me after my old faithful wheezy machine croaked victim of a row of failed capacitors was a breeze in comparison, now I have to determine if this machine must be returned to the vendor or it is just a bad software issue.

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llivv
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Re: Virtual console, framebuffer, NVidia trouble ?

#8 Post by llivv »

I checked the mobo specs - you're going to need the backprots kernel

purge all nivida* nvidia-390* packages for now .... ....
add stable backports to /etc/apt/sources.list
[backports instructions] https://backports.debian.org/Instructions/
install backports firmware packages for you MSI than upgrade to the backports kernel

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apt update
apt-get -t stretch-backports install linux-image-4.18.0-0.bpo.1-amd64 
post any errors or missing firmware messages you get
reboot

describe the boot and login.
Did boot get stuck anywhere? login to Gnome? login to CLI?
make sure backports kernel is running

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uname -r
In memory of Ian Ashley Murdock (1973 - 2015) founder of the Debian project.

Sante
Posts: 17
Joined: 2018-12-09 04:17

Re: Virtual console, framebuffer, NVidia trouble ?

#9 Post by Sante »

today the package manager upgraded everything Nvidia-related, 30 packages, and removed several wayland packages. I want to see if I get more unexpected crashes, a slim chance things got fixed maybe ? and if I do i'll definitely go for your solution. btw where can i find the documentation about my motherboard ? i'd really like to give it a long hard read. I already added the stretch-backport repository days ago for different purposes so it is only a matter of switching packages if still things go south. Booting never fails, only i experienced some possibly firefox-related meltdowns a few hours after boot time. installing backports ? i really believed i was buying decently up to date hardware, apart from the old graphics board i added just to free al the ram.

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llivv
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Re: Virtual console, framebuffer, NVidia trouble ?

#10 Post by llivv »

Sante wrote: [...]The current machine is a brand new core i7/msi h110m pro-vh/kingston ssd and my 8 gb ram (2 sticks) tested fine in memtest.
Sante wrote: btw where can i find the documentation about my motherboard ? i'd really like to give it a long hard read.
https://msi.com
h110m pro-vh
In memory of Ian Ashley Murdock (1973 - 2015) founder of the Debian project.

Sante
Posts: 17
Joined: 2018-12-09 04:17

Re: Virtual console, framebuffer, NVidia trouble ?

#11 Post by Sante »

This entire thread is probably useless since the culprit was a faulty motherboard.
To add insult to the injury, the seller also managed to mess up the delivery which resulted in my pc being temporarily lost. I got it back eventually.

Now it is running Buster, no hangs, no crashes in ten days. Before this I ran the preinstalled windows 10 for a month just to see if it met similar troubles and in fact it worked flawlessly. Also was curious to see how much windows is annoying today (last version i bought was win98) and after some time it started showing its true face in the form of stupid games being installed behind your back (yes, the ambiguity is on purpose ;) ) without even notifying the user. Its only true advantage is that it boots in like, 10 seconds.

glad to be back home anyways. More thanks to the fellows I annoyed pointlessly here.

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