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Installation without Desktop does not boot to terminal.

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Kennington
Posts: 5
Joined: 2021-10-20 10:09

Installation without Desktop does not boot to terminal.

#1 Post by Kennington »

I'm performing a fresh installation of Bullseye using debian-11.1.0-amd64-netinst.iso.
I do not want a desktop environment. I would like to boot to a terminal.

If I deselect the default software selections of
Debian desktop environment
... GNOME

then when the machine reboots at the end of the installation process, after the Grub screen, I just see the following:
/dev/mapper/debian--vg-root: clean, 31127/60956672 files, 4349071/24381440 blocks

I see no terminal prompt. The system is unresponsive to keyboard input (apart from Ctrl-Alt-Del)
I can ssh into the machine though.

As a test I repeated the installation with desktop environment selected and this worked as expected.

Am I wrong to expect an installation without desktop to boot to a terminal? Is there something extra I need to make it do so?

Thanks

P.S. The default entry in grub.cfg is as follows:

menuentry 'Debian GNU/Linux' --class debian --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-simple-f16f242f-4ba6-43c6-b245-b42c2b259b9b' {
load_video
insmod gzio
if [ x$grub_platform = xxen ]; then insmod xzio; insmod lzopio; fi
insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 7a496605-29f5-42ec-8b16-1b162d5438c3
else
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 7a496605-29f5-42ec-8b16-1b162d5438c3
fi
echo 'Loading Linux 5.10.0-9-amd64 ...'
linux /vmlinuz-5.10.0-9-amd64 root=/dev/mapper/debian--vg-root ro quiet
echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
initrd /initrd.img-5.10.0-9-amd64
}

kedaha
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Re: Installation without Desktop does not boot to terminal.

#2 Post by kedaha »

Hi,
To be exact it does not boot to a tty.
That might be a default security setting to prevent login locally when login is via ssh.
Perhaps after running:

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# systemctl enable getty@tty1.service
You'll get the login tty?
But take a look at wiki.debian.org/getty.
DebianStable

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$ vrms

No non-free or contrib packages installed on debian!  rms would be proud.

Kennington
Posts: 5
Joined: 2021-10-20 10:09

Re: Installation without Desktop does not boot to terminal.

#3 Post by Kennington »

Thanks for the reply

"To be exact it does not boot to a tty. "
Please forgive my loose terminology. To be clear, I want it to boot to a text only login prompt and then to a text shell.

"systemctl enable getty@tty1.service"
That didn't help unfortunately.

"That might be a default security setting to prevent login locally when login is via ssh."
I repeated the installation without selecting SSH server but this did not enable the console.

I have also tried following the suggestion here viewtopic.php?t=79520, to no avail.

trinidad
Posts: 290
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Re: Installation without Desktop does not boot to terminal.

#4 Post by trinidad »

It's systemd. Edit the end of the line below.

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.../debian--vg-root ro quiet 3
Add the three with grub edit in the grub screen. That will make it work temporarily.

https://www.linuxuprising.com/2020/01/h ... de-in.html

TC
You can't believe your eyes if your imagination is out of focus.

Kennington
Posts: 5
Joined: 2021-10-20 10:09

Re: Installation without Desktop does not boot to terminal.

#5 Post by Kennington »

".../debian--vg-root ro quiet 3"

This didn't help unfortunately.

trinidad
Posts: 290
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Re: Installation without Desktop does not boot to terminal.

#6 Post by trinidad »

Did you boot from the edit or fallback to default by mistake?
You can't believe your eyes if your imagination is out of focus.

kedaha
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Re: Installation without Desktop does not boot to terminal.

#7 Post by kedaha »

I've tried to replicate this in QEMU but I do get a login prompt:
After you see:

Code: Select all

/dev/mapper/debian--vg-root: clean, 31127/60956672 files, 4349071/24381440 blocks
You should, unless something is wrong, get the prompt:

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Debian GNU/Linux 11 bullseye tty1
bullseye login:
Have you used the official installation netinstall image?
It seems there's some glitch there. It's odd that only Ctrl-Alt-Del works. I suppose you've tried Ctrl-Alt-F1? Or with F2, F3 F4 F5?
With ssh access you might try:

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# systemctl get-default
to show the target set initially. if you try options running the above command will restore the default.
And try:

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# systemctl set-default multi-user.target
# reboot
Looking a little further afield than the Debian wiki, see, for example systemd-services-run-levels-logs.
DebianStable

Code: Select all

$ vrms

No non-free or contrib packages installed on debian!  rms would be proud.

trinidad
Posts: 290
Joined: 2016-08-04 14:58
Been thanked: 14 times

Re: Installation without Desktop does not boot to terminal.

#8 Post by trinidad »

@kedaha All the various methods work for me too, but two are systems with DEs, and one is a web server. Since he can login with SSH, which is a separate server looped to the system, I'm wondering how he setup the original core system, if with sudo or not, and with what standard utilities. He may not have a multi-user target served for login at all in which case he should append 1 to the boot line to try to get a root terminal. He mentions using a netinst ISO so he must have had a configured network connection and he mentions logging in from SSH so there should be a multi-user target, but SSH may be the only configured user.

TC
You can't believe your eyes if your imagination is out of focus.

kedaha
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Re: Installation without Desktop does not boot to terminal.

#9 Post by kedaha »

Just to discount the possibility of missing firmware when "in some cases, a successful installation can still end up in a black screen or a garbled display when rebooting into the installed system."
See completing-installed-system from the Debian Installation Guide.
DebianStable

Code: Select all

$ vrms

No non-free or contrib packages installed on debian!  rms would be proud.

Kennington
Posts: 5
Joined: 2021-10-20 10:09

Re: Installation without Desktop does not boot to terminal.

#10 Post by Kennington »

Thank you for the replies. I'll consolidate my responses here.

"I suppose you've tried Ctrl-Alt-F1? Or with F2, F3 F4 F5?"
Yes. No response.

"Did you boot from the edit or fallback to default by mistake?"
I made the edit and pressed F10.

On a later iteration, without having edited the grub command line, after logging in via ssh I saw,

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# systemctl get-default
return

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graphical.target
I entered the following

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# systemctl set-default multi-user.target
# reboot
Still no login prompt. Checking..

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# systemctl get-default
now returns

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multi-user.target
I'm wondering how he setup the original core system, if with sudo or not, and with what standard utilities.
I installing from https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/cu ... etinst.iso, flashed to an sd card.
I've tried both with the root user enabled and without.
In software selection I only have 'SSH Server' and 'standard system utilities' checked.

Checking the logs for errors I see

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Oct 20 18:44:42 debian kernel: nouveau 0000:09:00.0: bios: version 86.08.36.00.0d
Oct 20 18:44:42 debian kernel: nouveau 0000:09:00.0: firmware: failed to load nvidia/gp108/nvdec/scrubber.bin (-2)
Oct 20 18:44:42 debian kernel: firmware_class: See https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware for information about missing firmware
Oct 20 18:44:42 debian kernel: nouveau 0000:09:00.0: firmware: failed to load nvidia/gp108/acr/bl.bin (-2)
Oct 20 18:44:42 debian kernel: nouveau 0000:09:00.0: acr: firmware unavailable
Oct 20 18:44:42 debian kernel: nouveau 0000:09:00.0: pmu: firmware unavailable
Oct 20 18:44:42 debian kernel: nouveau 0000:09:00.0: gr: firmware unavailable
Oct 20 18:44:42 debian kernel: nouveau 0000:09:00.0: sec2 ctor failed, -38
Oct 20 18:44:42 debian kernel: nouveau: probe of 0000:09:00.0 failed with error -38
I'm not sure if this is significant. Recall that a desktop install worked.

Kennington
Posts: 5
Joined: 2021-10-20 10:09

Re: Installation without Desktop does not boot to terminal.

#11 Post by Kennington »

kedaha wrote: 2021-10-20 18:31 Just to discount the possibility of missing firmware when "in some cases, a successful installation can still end up in a black screen or a garbled display when rebooting into the installed system."
See completing-installed-system from the Debian Installation Guide.
From the link:
Pass the nomodeset option on the kernel command line. This might help boot into a “fallback graphics” mode.
This did indeed take me to a login prompt!

Then

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sudo apt-get install isenkram-cli
sudo  isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
sudo reboot
resulted in a beautiful login prompt.

Thank you very much @kedaha and @trinidad for your kind help with this.

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