Black screen on startup of new MX 21 install

[TinyCritter]

Hello :)

I recently updated to MX 21 (a clean install on an unused drive), but I've been having what seems to be display/xorg issues - specifically, I get a black screen with a blinking cursor upon booting, and it never gets as far as the login screen (the GRUB menu does show up prior to the black screen though) (also, it seems like TTY doesn't work during the black screen, either)

I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the install using the wrong settings for my gpu/display drivers, as I've gotten this issue previously with MX 17 and 18 upon first installing them back a few years ago (I had fixed those a long time ago, but have long since forgotten the steps I took to do so :/)

I can actually get it to fully boot if I hit 'e' in the grub menu and add nomodeset as a parameter after 'quiet splash', but when I do that and it boots, my screen resolution in 'Display' is stuck at 1024x768 as the highest resolution, which looks terrible (the monitor is 1080p and was detected properly on my previous MX 18.3 install).

I'm wondering how I might be able to boot MX 21 normally without the nomodeset parameter, so I can get a proper 1920x1080 resolution via fixing whatever's currently faulty with the display settings. I've spent about ~2 hours so far searching the forums for the same issue that might have already been solved, and have tried multiple different potential fixes, but none have worked so far :(

The relevant part of my quick system info:

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Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics 
  driver: N/A 
  Device-2: NVIDIA GM204 [GeForce GTX 970] driver: N/A 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: loaded: nouveau,vesa 
  unloaded: fbdev,modesetting resolution: 1024x768 
  OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 11.0.1 256 bits) v: 4.5 Mesa 20.3.5 

(I noticed that it has driver: N/A for both the integrated graphics and the GPU, which I found kind of strange, as well as that it says it has both nouveau and vesa loaded at the same time)

[Huckleberry Finn]

What about when booting to live session (to install)? Did it boot without nomodeset? Is this only after installation?

If you can boot only with nomodeset on live session, too: just try with:

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i915.invert_brightness=1

(instead of that)


( driver: N/A and (hence) resolution limitations etc. are normal when you use nomodeset)

[TinyCritter]

What about when booting to live session (to install)? Did it boot without nomodeset? Is this only after installation?

If you can boot only with nomodeset on live session, too: just try with:

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i915.invert_brightness=1

(instead of that)


( driver: N/A and (hence) resolution limitations etc. are normal when you use nomodeset)

Hi! I just tried

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i915.invert_brightness=1

instead of nomodeset, but still got the endless blinking cursor/black screen. Also, thanks for the info about nomodeset -- at least now I know what's causing the super low resolution.

Re live session -- I created an MX21 LiveUSB via the built in LiveUSB maker in MX 18, and that worked almost perfectly for the install -- iirc, I didn't need to use nomodeset for the live session / original install, only afterwards for the system it installed on my main drive.

[Huckleberry Finn]

... didn't need to use nomodeset for the live session / original install, only afterwards for the system it installed on my main drive.

That's really weird. Maybe you post "Quick System Info" from menu on live session. (Just paste as it is without editing).

[TinyCritter]

... didn't need to use nomodeset for the live session / original install, only afterwards for the system it installed on my main drive.

That's really weird. Maybe you post "Quick System Info" from menu on live session. (Just paste as it is without editing).

Oops, nevermind! I must have mis-remembered: I just tried booting into MX 21 via LiveUSB (the same one I used to install my current main version), and got a black screen of doom (without the blinking cursor, interestingly), so it looks like I did need to use nomodeset even with the live session too...

[Huckleberry Finn]

Did you verify the iso (sha256 md5 etc) ?

Just 2 days ago, same card, similar issue:

Graphics:
Device-1: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics
driver: i915 v: kernel

https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php ... 23#p706723

[TinyCritter]

Did you verify the iso (sha256 md5 etc) ?

Just 2 days ago, same card, similar issue:

Graphics:
Device-1: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics
driver: i915 v: kernel

https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php ... 23#p706723

Yes - I verified the .iso via sha256 and GPG, twice each, just to make sure. I think the black screen-with-cursor issue on my system is of a different kind from the one you linked -- again I'm fairly sure it has something to do with it not properly detecting my video card (or maybe integrated graphics) and/or loading the wrong drivers for it, though I don't yet know how to fix it :/

Is there any additional type of info I could pull up that might help narrow it down?

[Huckleberry Finn]

On live session can you try this (instead of nomodeset)?

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vcard=off

if still not:

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vcard=menu

(... then select Intel)

It's "on" by default, still you can try

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vcard=on

[TinyCritter]

On live session can you try this (instead of nomodeset)?

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vcard=off

if still not:

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vcard=menu

(... then select Intel)

It's "on" by default, still you can try

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vcard=on

Hello again :) sorry for the super long response time, I ended up taking a break from trying to fix anything.

I just now tried what you suggested; first with vcard=menu and selecting Intel (got stuck on a black screen without a cursor). Then rebooted and tried vcard=off instead of nomodeset via the LiveUSB -- it booted beautifully (with properly detected monitor/display resolution)!!

So that seems to actually work in the live session anyways -- do you know how I could carry that over into the main install, and with that success in mind, maybe what I could do in order to get the nouveau nvidia driver working properly with the card re not needing nomodeset anymore?

Thanks a bunch for your help so far ( :

edit: I tried removing 'quiet' from the boot options on the main install without using nomodeset to see if it had any info, the last four lines at the very bottom that it gets stuck on are:

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 [        1.416693] i915 0000:00:02.0: enabling device (0006  -> 0007)
 [        1.416926] i915 0000:00:02.0: [drm] VT-d active for gfx access
 [        1.417130] i915 0000:00:02.0: [drm] DMAR active, disabling use of stolen memory
 [        1.420001] i915 0000:00:02.0: vgaarb: changed VGA decodes: olddecodes=io+mem,decodes=none:owns=mem 

..and it just stops there without progressing

[JBoman]

Boots on my desktop fine but on my toshiba laptop I get the black screen with blinking cursor. It takes several minutes but it eventually boots to login screen. The whole process takes 4 to 6 minutes on my laptop to complete. Don't know why but eventually always boots on up.