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[SOLVED] Display Won't Install Properly, Works Off Live USB

Linux Kernel, Network, and Services configuration.
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JJ0704
Posts: 4
Joined: 2017-08-12 18:04

[SOLVED] Display Won't Install Properly, Works Off Live USB

#1 Post by JJ0704 »

Hello,

I am very new to Linux, but have been enjoying the challenge of learning this new operating system...though it has been quite a steep learning curve and often frustrating. I have recently installed "Debian Stretch Uspace RT-PREEMPT" for use as the operating system to run an application called "Linux CNC". The particular *.iso that I used is the 64bit r8 version that can be found here http://linuxcnc.org/testing-stretch-rtpreempt/.

When I tested this distribution of Debian out using the USB booted "Live" mode, my display worked great and it successfully found and loaded the "Acer Inc 22" display of my computer, which is an Acer Aspire Z3771-UR20P all-in-one. The 1920x1080 resolution provided excellent results.

However, after installing Debian off the same USB drive, the only display that shows up in the Settings Editor is called "Default" and it will only provide an extremely annoying 1024x768 resolution. After some searching, I first tried to add another resolution to this "Default" display using Xrandr in the terminal. This resulted in an error stating "failed to get size of gamma for output default". I believe that I need to somehow load and/or have Debian recognize the driver for my display.

In order to help describe my problem for anybody willing to help, I will share some details about my specific system...

1. This command to identify the Intel on-chip video processor:

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sudo lspci -knn | grep -iA2 vga
Yielded this result:

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00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0102] (rev 09)
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller [1025:0640]
	Kernel modules: i915
2. This command, which I think ensures that the drivers were installed:

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sudo apt install firmware-linux-nonfree libgl1-mesa-dri xserver-xorg-video-ati
Yielded this result:

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Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
libgl1-mesa-dri is already the newest version (13.0.6-1+b2).
libgl1-mesa-dri set to manually installed.
xserver-xorg-video-ati is already the newest version (1:7.8.0-1+b1).
xserver-xorg-video-ati set to manually installed.
firmware-linux-nonfree is already the newest version (20161130-3).
firmware-linux-nonfree set to manually installed.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 15 not upgraded.
I can also share the Xorg.0.log file if that is required to help identify a solution to this problem.

I would be most grateful to anybody who can assist me with getting the correct display driver to load. I apologize in advance if this is a 'newbie' question. I have spend many hours trying to search for fixes and all of those that I have found did not work. Step-by-step instructions would be appreciated as I am very new to Linux and not familiar with many of the nuances yet.

Thank you in advance!
JJ
Last edited by JJ0704 on 2017-08-17 03:22, edited 1 time in total.

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stevepusser
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Re: Display Won't Install Properly, But Works Fine Off Live

#2 Post by stevepusser »

Install inxi and see what the

Code: Select all

inxi -G
(as regular user)

command says about your situation.

The ati driver is a red herring. I believe that Debian is using the kernel's built-in modesetting driver by default, and you can try the xorg driver instead, which is xserver-xorg-video-intel. Then you can tell the system to use it with an /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf file, containing something like this:

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Section "Device"
        Identifier  "Device0"
        Driver      "intel"
        BusID       "PCI:0:2:0"
        Option      "AccelMethod" "sna"
        Option      "DRI"    "true"
        Option      "TearFree"  "true"
        Option "DRI" "3"
EndSection
MX Linux packager and developer

JJ0704
Posts: 4
Joined: 2017-08-12 18:04

Re: Display Won't Install Properly, But Works Fine Off Live

#3 Post by JJ0704 »

After installing inxi, the result of

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inxi -G
yeilded:

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Graphics:  Card: Intel 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller
           Display Server: X.Org 1.19.2 drivers: fbdev (unloaded: modesetting,vesa)
           Resolution: 1024x768@76.00hz
           GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 3.9, 128 bits)
           GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 13.0.6
When I ran

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sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-intel
I got

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Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
xserver-xorg-video-intel is already the newest version (2:2.99.917+git20161206-1).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 15 not upgraded.
How do I install the other drivers that you mentioned? I don't have an /xorg.conf.d folder or 20-intel.conf file in the /etc/X11 folder on my system.

Thank you in advance!

JJ0704
Posts: 4
Joined: 2017-08-12 18:04

Re: Display Won't Install Properly, But Works Fine Off Live

#4 Post by JJ0704 »

A fix for this must be more difficult than I had first imagined. Does anybody know how I can identify what video and/or display drivers are loaded when I boot up in "Live" mode with Debian Stretch?

I think this might help me identify what I need since the display works great in "Live" mode. When I try to run the exact same commands above in the terminal when booted in "Live" mode, I get an error that the command cannot be found.

JJ0704
Posts: 4
Joined: 2017-08-12 18:04

Re: Display Won't Install Properly, But Works Fine Off Live

#5 Post by JJ0704 »

After spending several days searching the web and trying dozens of potential fixes, I did find the root cause and very simple solution to the problem. It turns out that upon inspection of the inxi -G command, the boot parameters for the kernel were set to use the "fbdev (modesetting, vesa)" driver. Apparently fbdev = 'basic framebuffer' and limits display resolution to 1024x768. The reason this was loaded was because the GRUB configuration had the "nomodeset" boot parameter in place.

I found on another site that you can press the 'E' button (for edit) on the keyboard prior to selecting the Kernel/OS you want to boot with, which enables editing the GRUB configuration. Sure enough, it said "verbose nomodeset". I deleted the "nomodeset" word and booted up and it worked perfect with the correct resolution and display name. Unfortunately, it did not 'save' this configuration when I rebooted. So, I spent a few more hours trying to figure out how to edit that out permanently. Since I had to use a Windows based program called Grub2Win (very awesome btw!) in order to dual boot on this Windows 10 EUFI computer, I simply booted into Windows 10, ran the Grub2Win program, edited the configuration for the Debian option (very easy to do), saved it and rebooted. It all works great now.

Hopefully this explanation helps somebody else out someday. Linux is not for everybody and I am finding that to truly capture the flexibility that it offers, it will require an extensive amount of learning time investment. I am on the fence whether the return on investment is there or not. I am not a fan of all the highly abbreviated commands nor having to use the terminal for so much stuff...its like revisiting the horrible DOS days.

I owe thanks to a person who goes by "ferrari" and the comments that they posted on this support forum thread: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions ... 175603447/

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