Login screen not appearing after upgrade to Jessie

[Jermuli]

I upgraded from Wheezy to Jessie by changing sources from /etc/apt/source.list and running
apt-get update
apt-get --download-only dist-upgrade
apt-get dist-upgrade

This operation went fine and didn't seemingly break anything. However after shutting down computer and starting it again the login screen is not appearing after Grub menu. The screen is black after grub and it doesn't seem to respond to any key combinations. I have tried choosing recovery mode from Grub, but it doesn't help with the problem. Any ideas how I should start investigating this problem? I'm fairly new to Debian and I'm not sure how to fix this problem. Is there some way I could open the terminal and find logs about booting?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Bulkley]

Being new to Debian you would be better off with Wheezy. Jessie is Testing and they mean it.

Are you getting a cursor? If so, what happens when you type startx?

[Jermuli]

Being new to Debian you would be better off with Wheezy. Jessie is Testing and they mean it.

Are you getting a cursor? If so, what happens when you type startx?

I have used Wheezy for around 6 months. Mostly for learning C , writing tex documents, setting up tiling window manager and learning bash. Some packages that I would like to use are only available in testing (like fsharp). I will go back to Wheezy if I'm not able to fix this issue easily. Should I type startx to the black screen?

[dilberts_left_nut]

Ctrl-alt-f <number> should get you a terminal.
Log in and try startx and/or investigate in /var/log.

Edit: Didn't use the Nvidia installer or such did you?

[Jermuli]

Ctrl-alt-f <number> should get you a terminal.
Log in and try startx and/or investigate in /var/log.

Edit: Didn't use the Nvidia installer or such did you?

I will try this once I get to home from work. I didn't use Nvidia's drivers to my knowledge/memory. Should those driver's be avoided? I have 1440x2560 screen.

[Jermuli]

Ctrl-alt-f <number> should get you a terminal.
Log in and try startx and/or investigate in /var/log.

Edit: Didn't use the Nvidia installer or such did you?

Nothing happens in the black screen with any Ctrl-alt-f key combination.

[Ardouos]

Can you please:

1) Post your sources.list which you used to upgrade

2) Tell us your hardware and if you use the open source or Nvidia drivers?

3) Tell us if you have a flashing cursor or... anything? Can you type anything in the black screen?

[Jermuli]

Can you please:

1) Post your sources.list which you used to upgrade

Code: Select all

deb http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian/ testing main

deb http://security.debian.org/ testing/updates main
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ testing/updates main

# testing-updates, previously known as 'volatile'
deb http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian/ testing-updates main
deb-src http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian/ testing-updates main

deb http://repository.spotify.com testing non-free

deb http://apt.mopidy.com/ testing main contrib non-free
deb-src http://apt.mopidy.com/ testing main contrib non-free

2) Tell us your hardware and if you use the open source or Nvidia drivers?

Graphic card: AMD Radeon HD 7970
CPU: Intel Core i5 3570K

lspci -nn | grep VGA
Returns
.. VGA compatible controller [0300] : Advanded Micro Devices , Inc. [ATI]..
Tahiti XT [Radeon HD7970/8970 OEM / R9 280X] [1002:6798]

3) Tell us if you have a flashing cursor or... anything? Can you type anything in the black screen?

I can't type anything to the black screen. No flashing cursor. Only way that I was able to get to shell was by setting nomodeset argument from grub to the end of linux line. This shell didn't have any internet connection so I had to manually copy sources to usb so that I could post them here.
Is there any way that I could easily just go back to Wheezy. I believe that this has something to do with graphic card drivers. Even opening any file in vim gets the screen flashing weird characters, meaning that I can't edit any file inside the operating system.

[stevepusser]

Maybe you can try disabling kernel mode setting when you boot--it often results in blank screens. Try adding

nomodeset

to the kernel boot line from GRUB.

Edit: Ooops--you've done this and arrived at a CLI.

Usually, the first thing you try as part of the upgrade is to upgrade the kernel, which I don't think automatically gets upgraded to Jessie's with "dist-upgrade". I'm assuming you were running the open-source Radeon driver for your AMD card? You can upgrade to a Jessie level kernel from wheezy-backports beforehand, also.

[robert3242]

First, changing from Stable to Testing is not an "upgrade." It is changing from the released, stable distribution to a collection of packages which, until finally officially released, may or may not work as advertised and may well not work at all. Testing certainly isn't Debian's way of quietly issuing some sort of so-called "rolling release" intended for use by average users.

[stevepusser]

Can you edit anything using nano?

And what kernel are you running? (uname -r)

[Jermuli]

First, changing from Stable to Testing is not an "upgrade." It is changing from the released, stable distribution to a collection of packages which, until finally officially released, may or may not work as advertised and may well not work at all. Testing certainly isn't Debian's way of quietly issuing some sort of so-called "rolling release" intended for use by average users.

Thanks Robert, I'm well aware of this. I'm not sure if I'm average user not, but I'm just trying to solve this problem at hand.

[Jermuli]

Can you edit anything using nano?

And what kernel are you running? (uname -r)

I'll try this and upgrading kernel when I get to home from work. I'll also check what is the exact graphic driver in use.

[yzT]

your problem is an incompatibility between ATI cards and the latest kernel.

I didn't test in depth, but the current kernel 3.16 and its radeon driver are not working properly. If you want to install fglrx, you need to downgrade to kernel 3.13 as it's the latest supported by the beta version (14.6)

[JulietLindv]

I'm having similar issues with the login screen after updating, it comes and goes so I can't quite figure out what the deal is. Anyway way to roll back to the previous state?

[stevepusser]

your problem is an incompatibility between ATI cards and the latest kernel.

I didn't test in depth, but the current kernel 3.16 and its radeon driver are not working properly. If you want to install fglrx, you need to downgrade to kernel 3.13 as it's the latest supported by the beta version (14.6)

Actually, you can safely install the Sid fglrx packages in Jessie and Wheezy, and they are patched to build with the 3.14 at least through the 3.16 kernel. They were also easy to backport on a Wheezy base to go along with a backported 3.16 Liquorix kernel. I don't know what's keeping them out of Jessie.

The driver source straight from AMD will have those problems, though.

[yzT]

Anyway way to roll back to the previous state?

yes, clone your root directory with CloneZilla before attempting to upgrade.

[peter_irich]

I have troubles with fglrx in Jessie too. After system has booting, graphics mode usually not settled and I got login in text mode.
I log in as root and restart my DM:

Code: Select all

/etc/init.d/kdm restart

after this graphics mode usually starts.

Peter.

[Cre8ted4]

I use sparkylinux also had no login screen witch is debian also i fixed it with

((((((((( HOLD- ALT+CTRL+F1 LOGIN:USER---PASS THEN SWITCHED TO ALT+CTRL+F7 AND FOUND THE GUI ))))))))))))

ps i also got a black screen after i installed ,updated and rebooted this worked for me ... hope it works for you smileys if it worked........