OT: Linux video crash help please.

[T i m]

Hi all,

So, today I assembled a new PC on behalf of a family member with the intention of them running Linux with Windows for 'Windows things'.

W10 (64b) installed and found all it's drivers ok and seems to be rock solid (so far).

I then installed Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon (64b) and the first sign of all not being well was when the LiveDVD run crashed with what looked like a video issue?

I rebooted from the DVD in 'Compatability mode' and this time it seemed to run ok and I managed to setup the partitions, install and reboot it from the SSD.

I then applied the updates and whilst they were downloading the video (or machine) crashed again:

I hit the reset button, restarted Mint and started the updates again. This time it finished ok, so I restarted and not long after it crashed again:

So, used to trying different distros to try to get one that might work OOTB, I booted a Ubuntu 15.10 MATE (64b) DVD and went to install that (doesn't take long on an SSD).

First the installer seemed to hang when I was trying to re-set the partitions and then crashed whilst in Gparted when trying to clear the (Mint) partitions manually:

Now, I've got a horrible feeling that it may be an issue with the 'Haswell' chipset, the integrated Intel HD graphics and Linux (as W10 is fine) so I don't know what to do now.

The 'Dad' of the family has been running Ubuntu / Unity as his daily desktop OS for a few years now (thanks to me) and so they are all familiar with it to a degree and were going to give it a go on this new PC and use it for as much as possible (if not everything). However, if I can't even get it to run I'm not sure it will be any use to them. To that effect I've just changed to default OS to W10 (I use EasyBCD as that makes such things easier for me).

If it's any help, here is a text file showing some of the hardware from Windows and Linux viewpoint:

I've not applied any other tests as yet and (FWIW) the BIOS is the latest version for that board.

So, because it seemed to work in 'Compatibility mode' it does confirm it's probably a video / video driver / compatibility issue and if so does anyone know of a fix please? I have just used an addon video card to get round this sort of thing in the past but this onboard Intel solution is plenty fast enough in W10 and equally ok in Linux (whilst it's running) I'm going to find it hard to justify the extra cost of a 'different video solution when this one is fine under W10?

I didn't spot a 'Compatibility' mode on the installed GRUB menu (unlike the one on the LiveDVD)?

Cheers, T i m

[Robin]

The limit of my knowledge (from helping someone choose a PC) is that Intel reckon only some Haswell graphics support Linux:

They may of course be wrong

[T i m]

Crikey, quite a lot aren't supported are they but I'm guessing (hoping) that 'officially'?

Well, part of the reason I posted the request was because I had a funny (sinking, considering this PC was built with Linux in the plan) feeling I read something about issues with the later / current Intel integrated graphics on the net.

TBH, I know (from bitter experience) that I / one should check when buying PC hardware to make sure that it's 'Linux compatible' (whatever that means with so many kernels and distros etc) but because I'd had quite a bit of luck with Linux at least running on many machines these days [1], that it might be an issue with some newer' stuff.

So, I could just leave the Mint on the machine (dual boot) in the hope that someone in a shed comes up with a Linux driver (assuming it is that), fit an additional video card that is supported or get a different motherboard that has a different onboard graphics solution that is Linux compatible (we chose Gigabyte because they are generally 'good / reliable').

And all this is gambling that they will be able to use Linux for enough of their needs in the first place. ;-(

I think see what my mate can get a very basic 'Linux compatible' PCIe graphics card for.

Cheers, T i m

[1] Including the one my mate in the PC shop just put together out of fairly new 'leftovers' to replace his existing older Linux PC.

[Andrew Gabriel]

I used to do quite a bit of this, but not for last few years. However, I used to find the nVidia unix drivers (Linux and Solaris) were always very much better than Intel ones. Check nVidia's list of supported chipsets for their driver, and then go and find a card that has one of the supported chipsets. If you're just using web browsing, youtube, etc, a bottom spec (but current model) card will still be way more capable than you need. Also, make sure you are using nVidia's real driver, and not an opensource one - this may mean downloading it from nVidia as I'm not sure many of the Linux distros bundle it in.

[Timothy Murphy]

I don't think the fact that Intel doesn't support a particular controller means that it won't work under a particular Linux system. I'm running Fedora-23 on a ThinkPad T510 with an Intel Integrated Graphics Controller which is not supported by Intel according to above URL, but which works fine.

My impression is that most Intel graphics controllers do in fact work under most Linux implementations.

[T i m]

Ok.

Did you ever see Linus's feelings on nVidia Andrew?

Understood.

Well as long as it comes in an easy_to_use format (for a non Linux geek) then (even) I might be able to make use of it but I can't say I've had much success (but some) even when using the GUI driver tool (and when just selecting 'Recommended', rebooting and ending up at a CLI machine). ;-(

As it happens I have just found a basic PCIe (rebranded) nVidia card here that I can try, before looking for something new.

Cheers, T i m

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Linux crashed? Surely that is impossible? ;-)

[Timothy Murphy]

I strongly disagree with that. I read several Linux forums and newsgroups, and problems with nVidea cards come up all the time, while questions about Intel controllers are very rare.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Definitely Nvidia, whose drivers are mainly bundled with Linux Distros, are better than the alternatives

I'm running a 610 or summat, which is a good price performance break at around £40. You can get 210s for £20 or so

However Intel stuff usually works OK, just at poor performance.

I missed the start of this thread. What was the problem?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Depends on 'better' INTEL usually reliable but slow. Nvidia, very fast, with some gotchas

Because I play a semi realtime game. I have a mid range nvidia, which has proved to be pretty reliable really.

Onboard Intel just to lsow.

[Bob Eager]

drivers/000005526.html

+1.

I use nVidia graphics on all on the machines I have here (they all run FreeBSD). The open source driver is definitely not as good as the nVidia- supplied one, although both are in the ports tree and can be built rapidly.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ah. Finally found the original article.

The first thing to do if you can get it to run at all is as follows.

Firstly install Mint in compatibility mode. This just uses very basic video drivers for the install.

Then if you can get stable video enough to upgrade everything, upgrade everything to latest.

If you can get stable video long enough to run the 'driver manager' then that is the best way to get the right video drivers installed for your system.

Otherwise its probably back to ye olde Console and set up a root password and got around doing this stuff by hand.

Ctrl-Alt-F1 gets you a loginp rompt. Login as yourself then sudo passwd root su - /etc/init.d/mdm stop (This kills the x session and the whole windowing system)

'apt-get update' will refresh the list of packages 'apt-get upgrade' will install the latest versions of them

Then what you need is the latest and the correct video driver.

apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-intel

If that doesn't work or is already installed, you are in trouble.

Look here

That tells you how to boot up each time or permanently in 'compatibility mode'

Until you can find the right drivers and get them installed

A bit of a browse has suggested that because mint is - er mint - and not Ubuntu, although it is ubuntu at this sort of level, sometimes stuff doesn't work because its excepts bits of te system to represent themselves as ubuntu.

Finally if you get to a stable command line you need to ID what hardware you have for searching for issues with that particular chipset.

i.e.

lspci | grep VGA

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK208 [GeForce GT 720] (rev a1)

shows that this system has a GT720 running IIRC theh GK208 chipset.

Another valuable source of info is the X log file

grep WW /var/log/Xorg.0.log

will show all the warnings.

(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown. [ 6.023] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic" does not exist. [ 6.023] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/" does not exist. [ 6.023] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/" does not exist. [ 6.023] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi" does not exist. [ 6.023] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi" does not exist. [ 6.024] (WW) "glamoregl" will not be loaded unless you've specified it to be loaded elsewhere. [ 6.024] (WW) "xmir" is not to be loaded by default. Skipping. [ 6.099] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for modesetting [ 6.099] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for fbdev [ 6.100] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for vesa [ 6.856] (WW) evdev: Microsoft Wired Keyboard 600: ignoring absolute axes. [ 6.857] (WW) evdev: Microsoft Microsoft® 2.4GHz Transceiver v8.0: ignoring absolute axes. [ 6.857] (WW) evdev: Microsoft Microsoft® 2.4GHz Transceiver v8.0: ignoring absolute axes.

grep EE /var/log/Xorg.0.log

will show the errors.

If you can do these things and let me know what happens.

I suspect either the right driver hasn't been installed, in which case installing it should work, or the hardware is simply very new and the distro hasn't quite caught up yet, and the right driver *wont* install without some trickery

[John Rumm]

Without knowing the market share of each and the user profile, does that actually tell you anything?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Something, but not a lot.

In all cases very old video hardware with obsolescent drivers has issues, and very new hardware, except that nvidia are pretty good at pushing Linux drivers for very new hardware. Slightly better than Intel IME.

Very New Hardware or even slightly off beat hardware will always be an issue as the software installers and so on need a bit of time to 'catch up'.

I thought I might have issues with my very new intel video equipped laptop, but it 'just worked'

[T i m]

Yes, that was my feeling about Intel and Linux in general (and have chanced server 'Non-Linux compatible or possibly a PITA to set up in Linux) network and other cards to Intel with reasonable success (ie, it works OOTB with little or no input from me or the potential end user, should he / she ever have to install Linux again from scratch).

It might be that this 1) not a video issue (and I've not had chance to do any hardware tests but W10 runs fine FWIW etc) or might not be a video issue in the future sometime, as / when / if the Linux drivers catch up.

It's just what to do for the best *right now*, given that I've sold them onto the idea of giving Linux a go as their default OS.

Maybe I'll just pick up a cheap nVidia card at my own cost and see how it goes (ignoring the onboard VGA and DVI ports) it it seems such a shame, when it's only going to be a 'business' machine in any case (so I can't even justify having to 'upgrade' the onboard video to something faster to give them the required video performance).

But hey, it's family so it's no big issue. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[T i m]

That's killfiles for you eh (and just for telling the truth). ;-)

Done.

Done.

Done, (non offered).

Hopefully not because of my answers above?

Ok, from what I understand that will get me no further than I was via the GUI in this case (but thanks for the instructions etc).

Ok. Ad that wouldn't have been covered by the 'Additional drivers' GUI tool?

dawn@Black2 ~ $ sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-intel [sudo] password for dawn: Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming. The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies. xserver-xorg-video-intel : Depends: xorg-video-abi-15 Depends: xserver-xorg-core (>=

2:1.14.99.902) E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

That was my next experiment. I thought I normally saw that option in every GRUB boot menu (not just the one on the LiveDVD) but I might see if I can get Grub Customizer installed and see if that allows me the option.

Assuming there are any (yet / ever)? ;-(

I tried to install Ubuntu 15.10 64bit and had the exact same symptoms.

Like this you mean (had your silly killfile not got in the way).

*-display description: VGA compatible controller product: Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 2 bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0 version: 06 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: msi pm vga_controller

dawn@Black2 ~ $ grep EE /var/log/Xorg.0.log (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown. [ 2.689] (EE) Screen 0 deleted because of no matching config section. [ 2.689] (EE) Device(s) detected, but none match those in the config file. [ 2.691] (EE) Screen 0 deleted because of no matching config section. dawn@Black2 ~ $ grep WW /var/log/Xorg.0.log (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown. [ 2.681] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic" does not exist. [ 2.681] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/" does not exist. [ 2.681] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/" does not exist. [ 2.681] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi" does not exist. [ 2.681] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi" does not exist. [ 2.689] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for vesa [ 2.691] (WW) xf86OpenConsole: setpgid failed: Operation not permitted [ 2.691] (WW) xf86OpenConsole: setsid failed: Operation not permitted [ 2.691] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for vesa [ 2.691] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for modesetting [ 2.691] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for fbdev

That would be the ideal situation.

That would be ok but I fear that if my relations start using this PC on W10 they won't *then* moove over to Linux. ;-(

And if that is the case I'd rather fir a 'Linux compatible' card for them at my own cost.

Cheers, T i m

[T i m]

If someone would be so kind as to echo my previous reply to TNP please.

He killfiles me (for telling the truth), then replies offering information, help and asking me to do stuff and report back ... which I do and he either hasn't seen or has but doesn't have a solution, but won't admit because that would further qualify my 'truth'. ;-(

I'd like an answer either way as then I can either fix this Mint install or delete it and just pass the machine on running Windows only (which wasn't the intention / plan).

Cheers, T i m

[Richard]

You've tried this?

[T i m]

Not specifically but other searches for solutions (rather than causes) show there are so many hits across a wide range of hardware and distros, with mostly negative or limited outcomes and some quite old now, I thought I'd ask the geeks here .. in the hope they could translate it into current / 'ordinary user' speak. ;-)

I didn't get back to that PC today but I think the 'issue' may be down to activity. When I was first installing Mint it locked up quite a few times. I left it on, went shopping and when I came back (a few hours later) it was asleep but woke up ok. I didn't get chance to give it more work to see if still locked up but hope to tomorrow.

Cheers, T i m

[Vir Campestris]

:)

I have loads of graphics problems on my Haswell with Ubuntu at work. Cursors keep disappearing, and now I've got bigger screens there are days the screens turn on and off :(

Andy