Intel HD4400 graphics failure to start GUI

[liudr]

I have an HP pavilion laptop with core i5 4210U that has intel HD4400 graphics. I installed debian wheezy 7.7 after shrinking win 8 and freeing 350GB for debian. I went through the hurdle of making a UEFI bootable USB drive and the system dual boots fine. But once I boot debian, I get all the run time messages and then login prompt flashes and the whole screen is blank except for a prompt on top left. I can open a terminal but that's about it. I'm unable to remotely login (connection refused) from either windows using moba terminal or another debian machine.

I searched the internet and this forum and only found few things that a beginner can follow:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=117219&p=561605&hilit=hd4400

I tried the apt-get but it failed saying:

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E: The value "wheezy-backports" is invalid for APT::Default-Release as such a release is not available in the sources

I downloaded the complete Debian 7.7 from official site. Maybe wheezy-backports is a different distribution than whezzy? Can someone help? I suppose with low-cost laptop computers running wild these days, such as mine (listed below) for $300, there should be a lot of similar issues. This is an opportunity to get more people to use Linux but not until there is a simple enough solution for beginners to just overcome this issue. I'm trying to learn Linux so I turned my old laptop into debian 7.6 but that machine is from 2009 so I don't have a lot of faith in it's longevity. I got this second one new just for Linux but wanted to keep win 8 just in case.

In case I have to install Debian testing version that some said worked, how do I get rid of my current installation, which is UEFI? Do I just erase its partitions in windows? Then what happens to its UEFI boot manager? Just leave it there to rot? If I install again with debian testing version, I envision some problems of the grub UEFI boot manager thinking that the debian 7.7 is still there and try to boot to it. I do have the partition images in partition manager home version 12 so I could just restore the UEFI partition (with sweat in palms).

HP Pavilion 15
Core i5 421-U
4GB DDR3L
750GB WD hard drive
15.4" 1366*786

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Did you actually read the thread you have linked or did you just copy-paste the first command you saw?

@kiyop clearly says those packages are not in the wheezy-backports repository (which you would have to add to your /etc/apt/sources.list)...

When you were installing Debian, what options did you select?
Did you choose the default desktop option?

Please post the output of:

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lspci -knn | grep -iA2 vga

I wouldn't recommend using Debian Testing/Unstable, as you do not appear to have the necessary experience -- maybe try Mint instead?

[stevepusser]

The last post in that thread stated that the latest kernel in backports plus the backports intel driver https://packages.debian.org/wheezy-back ... ideo-intel did work to get his Haswell graphics working.

Liudr, you need to add wheezy-backports to your software sources, then update your package database, before you can use it. You can edit that file with a terminal-based editor such as nano.

[liudr]

First of all, I can't do any copy or paste since I have a non-working Linux. I'm only given a log in window. I didn't cut or paste, just typed. Here is what you requested (typed not pasted):

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00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [03000]: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0a16] (rev 0b)
Subsystem:Hewlett-Packard Company Device [103c:227e]
00:03.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:0a0c] (rev 0b)

I had the complete disc and installed through graphic install. I don't remember being prompted default desktop option. There were checkboxes and maybe one of them was desktop. When I did my old laptop, I specifically downloaded an image for kde desktop.

[liudr]

The last post in that thread stated that the latest kernel in backports plus the backports intel driver https://packages.debian.org/wheezy-back ... ideo-intel did work to get his Haswell graphics working.

Liudr, you need to add wheezy-backports to your software sources, then update your package database, before you can use it. You can edit that file with a terminal-based editor such as nano.

Yes, that's why I was following it, short and possibly working. So can you tell me how to add wheezy-backports to my software sources? I know apt-get update command and I ran it already (saying done). I have Ethernet cable on my laptop. Is the source option what you referred to? I appreciate you pointing out what I need to do. It's just that the human words rarely translate into linux commands and man pages are the least instructional materials I've read all day. Examples in mount would involve foo and bar but not even a damn "here is how to mount a usb flash drive to folder x". Whoever wrote the man pages know their stuff, just not sure if they intend on others learning from them.

[stevepusser]

Hah, I hear you about man pages!

I think you may have a working OS, just a broken GUI. Unlike Windows, quite a bit can be done on the command line. Did you set up a "root" and standard user password during the install? Can you log in with your standard user name and password on the login screen, or as root?

Usually, you can log in as root and run

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nano /etc/apt/sources.list

nano is a text mode text editor with on-screen help, like the old DOS day. You want to add the backport URL to that file:

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deb http://http.debian.net/debian wheezy-backports main

save, and

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apt-get update

You should now be able to run

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apt-get install -t wheezy-backports xserver-xorg-video-intel

successfully.

I'm not sure if you are running 32 or 64-bit. For 32-bit, install "linux-image-686-pae" from backports. For 64-bit, install
"linux-image-amd64" from backports. These are metapackages that will pull in whatever the most recent kernel is in backports.

After installing the kernel, you may have to update a file called initrd with

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update-initramfs -u -t

and then add the new kernel to the GRUB boot menu with

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update-grub

[liudr]

Took me another hour to get to install a particular version of package but I can't find the package that other poster referred to or the 2.20.14-1 or 2:2.20-14-1

I read this page and installed wheezy-backoprts

http://backports.debian.org/Instructions/

I then installed everything that post mentioned (didn't work for him) and that didn't work. I still see the VGA thing.

I also tried to install 2.20.14-1 version with no success. It can't find that version, with or without -t wheezy-backports

Any hints?

[liudr]

Thanks for your patience typing up commands for me. Most Linux gurus just say "do this (how can you not know how to DO)". THey don't know there is a difference between GUI and TUI. Exact commands are needed to do anything. So I got this far:

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apt-get install -t wheezy-backports xserver-xorg-video-intel



I installed a galore of packages from wheezy-backports besides the intel video. Now it is 2:2.21-2~something version.

I am using amd64 version. I am trying to install Linux-image-amd64 but it asked me for my install media, which it wants under /media/cdrom I guess it's not mounted there. Now off to google how to mount a stupid USB drive.

[liudr]

OK, I mounted the flash drive and installed the kernel an dupdated initrd and updated grub.

There were several warnings that are too many to type here. Mainly it's complaining not finding firmware for initrd stuff. I now have Linux 3.16 and 3.2. Which is which? I tried 3.2, not working so I guess it's wheezy? 3.16 worked but only has a gnome 3 GUI and it failed to load and went into a fallback mode. I've seen posts here about this so off I go.

Can I say now that I have two version kernels to boot into?

I felt like hours of work taught me very little about this operating system or anything positive about it. I didn't fall in love with Linux or swear to leave windows. It's just a matter of project development need. I never like operating systems for my real-time projects in the first place. But it's hard to do bare metal coding on a complex processor like arm with 513MB ram and various devices. So I use debian on that system (raspberry pi if you've ever heard of it). I felt that I should have a parallel PC with debian just to easily learn it and debug code (not to set up cross compiler, just to make code independent from architectures so I can compile and run on a PC and if it works fine, then move to raspberry pi and compile and run).

Here rants start:
I'm installing kde-full just for the heck of it. There are a hundred packages called kde, inviting enough to a newbie to pick. I'm not sure why I was not presented an option to install a particular gui with my full debian 7.7 install medium. My 1.2GB live with kde worked just find for older computers but has no UEFI support. It's time to slap together a disc that does UEFI and installs some nice-looking GUI such as KDE with office software and basic programming such as python and arduino for newer computers if Linux ever wants more users to fall for it. Right now it felt like Linux is not prepared for UEFI and win 8 and intel display driver challenge. It's like the intel corp not able to produce over 1GHz processor around 2000. Flocks went with AMD that year, LOL. How many of these UEFI/win8/intel display adapter combos are out there? Too many since they are cheap. I've long past the age bracket that felt satisfied with the ability to install Linux and run it after long weekend has been wasted on the said topic. I need results!

[Head_on_a_Stick]

@OP: I'm really sorry for having a go at you for not reading the post and then doing exactly the same myself...

FWIW, the Debian 7.7 installer is perfectly capable of booting and installing in EFI-mode and will install the GNOME desktop (beautiful!) as default...
It will not boot up with "secure boot" activated, however.

[stevepusser]

There were several warnings that are too many to type here. Mainly it's complaining not finding firmware for initrd stuff. I now have Linux 3.16 and 3.2. Which is which? I tried 3.2, not working so I guess it's wheezy? 3.16 worked but only has a gnome 3 GUI and it failed to load and went into a fallback mode. I've seen posts here about this so off I go.

Can I say now that I have two version kernels to boot into?

Yes, there is a steep learning curve at first, and, as Wheezy is getting a bit dated, it will have troubles with brand-new hardware. There are spinoffs of Debian that try to be compatible with newer hardware while sticking to a Wheezy base for the core libraries-- Debian won't ship with non-free firmware--that's Debian policy, and I understand and respect their stance.

Anyway...technically, Linux refers to just the kernel, all the other software comes from other sources. It should be called Debian GNU/Linux, to be correct. You should have two different kernels now--I try to keep at least two, since sometimes something I mess around with may break one kernel's GUI. Are you seeing entries for the kernels on the GRUB boot menu? You can also check what one you are currently running by executing

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uname -r

[liudr]

@OP: I'm really sorry for having a go at you for not reading the post and then doing exactly the same myself...

FWIW, the Debian 7.7 installer is perfectly capable of booting and installing in EFI-mode and will install the GNOME desktop (beautiful!) as default...
It will not boot up with "secure boot" activated, however.

NP. I recovered from that and worked out the solution. Yes, 7.7 can do all that but my problem was two-fold: UEFI install and intel HD4400 driver. I'll write a review on how I tackled the problem on my blog and post a link here. My hardware is very typical of cheap laptops sold these days (most have core i3 but I got core i5 for the same price). I'm not used to GNOME so I later installed KDE. It's more modern looking and I kind of know where everything is.

[liudr]

There were several warnings that are too many to type here. Mainly it's complaining not finding firmware for initrd stuff. I now have Linux 3.16 and 3.2. Which is which? I tried 3.2, not working so I guess it's wheezy? 3.16 worked but only has a gnome 3 GUI and it failed to load and went into a fallback mode. I've seen posts here about this so off I go.

Can I say now that I have two version kernels to boot into?

Yes, there is a steep learning curve at first, and, as Wheezy is getting a bit dated, it will have troubles with brand-new hardware. There are spinoffs of Debian that try to be compatible with newer hardware while sticking to a Wheezy base for the core libraries-- Debian won't ship with non-free firmware--that's Debian policy, and I understand and respect their stance.

Anyway...technically, Linux refers to just the kernel, all the other software comes from other sources. It should be called Debian GNU/Linux, to be correct. You should have two different kernels now--I try to keep at least two, since sometimes something I mess around with may break one kernel's GUI. Are you seeing entries for the kernels on the GRUB boot menu? You can also check what one you are currently running by executing

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uname -r

Yes, I current have 4 Debian entries on grub, two 3.2 and two 3.16, with one normal and one recovery mode. Thanks for explaining. I still have a question: so I installed a new kernel (testing version). Before that I also installed wheezy-backports and updated display driver but that didn't work. What do you think really solved my display driver problem? Does the new kernel have things addressing how to initialize display hardware or does the new kernel work better with new display driver or else?

[stevepusser]

They both have to be updated to get Haswell graphics working. In fact, the newer driver can cause trouble with non-haswell Intel graphics if installed on the stock 3.2 kernel. You are running the backports kernel also, not the testing (Jessie) kernel, thought they were built from the same source code, they were built using different versions of the gcc compiler.

I'm helping with the newer MX-14 release, (14.3) which should be out soon (days). Though based on Wheezy, it ships with the 3.14 backports kernel and the backports Intel driver by default, and supports Haswell out of the box.

[liudr]

Thanks Steve. So technically is debian 7.7 the linux 3.2? MX-14 looks great! If you don't mind me asking the obvious, what is the difference among different distributions? I'm a developer but I don't develop any specific GUI or base on specific libraries. I only use standard C/C++ libraries. I don't develop GUIs. My interest is on networking (TCP), interfacing with hardware (usb serial port etc.) and data logging. Different distributions will have the same gcc (maybe slightly different versions), right?