cant boot with geode cpu & gpu combo 8.04 - 9.04

This happens across the board on all ubuntu variants however elive a debian based disro boots fine in failsafe 1 mode. As does debian 5. Is not ubuntu based on debian? What is different in ubuntu that breaks the graphics whereas debian does not? As I cant ctl+alt_f_ to anything does that mean its a kernel issue?

Upon more digging and trying different distributions I see errors that deal with a cisco air card.

modprode: WARNING: Error inserting padlock_aes (/lib/modules/2.6.24-1-686/kernel/drivers/crypto/padlock-aes.ko): No such device

Not sure how much relevance it may or may not have but I though to update this and mention it.

Just tried the miniubuntu remix version based on 7.10 and that breaks the graphics too. Ubuntu is about the only distro I cant get up in live mode. If anyone has any questions that I can answer to be of any help please do not hesitate to ask.

Hy quotaholic,

I have a AMD Geode CPU in my server on my own. Think that's not the matter here. Also bootloader and kernel options son't seem to be helpful. I think you diagnosed it already. It's a problem post first bootstage. Something which has to do with your graphics adapter. Indeed it should be possible to switch between ttys without any problem. I think easiest is to stick with Debian then.

hello Aquina, thanks for your reply. I really appreciate you taking the time to write.

Aquina I am going to add more to this in an hour. I am currently uploading a video to google that shows the broken screen and how I actually cant switch over to another terminal. I dont know how to force ubuntu to show verbosity or I would offer a more concise description on whats happening. If you can tell me how I will offer a much better "break point".

There are over 600 of these units on ebay for sale at 100 bucks right now.. I am determined to get ubuntu working as its the best distro I have used. I run a forum web site on the computer in question so I am naturally interested in seeing what can work. Myself I am an Ubuntu person.

The US goverment auctioned off over a thousand of these things recently. With that many on ebay at that price, if its not me asking, it will be the next person. So I would like to do anything I can to help out in getting Ubuntu working on them.

Is it possible to ask ubuntu to be verbose on boot? Would not vga=normal get me past gpu issues? I know the bit depth to be 16 bit. Is 32 bit default? Are there known pcmcia adapters that will crash a boot? I hear the cisco's are tricky. Reaching......

here is a link to a video that will hopefully provide more insight than my descriptions of the problem.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7067665628402243671

While this was uploading I searched for more information on the GPU. THis was all I could find:

* AMD (NSC) Geode GX2/533mhz
* AMD CS5536 supporting chipset
* AMD Geode display chip
* Penmount DMC9000 4-wire resistive display attached to /dev/ttyS0 at 19200bps
* Cisco Aironet 350 PCMCIA 802.11b card

Is there anything I can try as a process of elimination?

Thank you!

1] "break point": Try to start a system like a live CD (e.g. Knoppix or SystemRescue CD, etc) and mount your HDD's volume (hda1 or sda1). Then access the /var/log directory on your HDD and you'll probably see what killed the box during start. ;-)

2] I like Ubuntu too but prefer Xubuntu on my organizations client systems. The server runs Ubuntu server though. We use v 8.04 because of the LTS only! I also recommend you to run that insetead of 8.10 in case you don't want to upgrade all the time. Furthermore I think Ubuntu server is easier to handle than a fresh Debain box, but it depends...

3] Verbose on boot is unknown to me but the "/var/log/" messages (acpid, dmesg, messages, debug.0, syslog, pm-suspend, udev, user.log.0, etc...) which are all in that directory will provide you with much information. See the "break point"-hint (1]) again.

4] Choose 24 bits wherever you can on all computers you have or will ever have no matter which OS. Use 16 bit as a fallback but take the reduced colour pallete and appupt changes in high detailed images into account. Forget about 32 bit except your game/gfx-app/etc does only offer 16 as an alternative. In a working environment stick with 16 in case you're not doing anything with graphics, imaging or video.

5] PCMCIA is a technology I avoided whenever I could within the last 20 years of private computing. I have no demand for that standard. I cannot help you with that. Sorry! :(

6] To eliminate remove the card but I don't think that would cause a kernel panic or the like. Default proicedure is to ignore hardware and continue booting normal. GNU/Linux is not M$ Windows with it's user-space stuff which can break everything. I also checket the Ubuntu HCL (http://www.ubuntuhcl.org/browse/search?keywords=Geode) but it gave me no results at all. Think AMD Geode is supported though. I never heard of AMD issues past K6-2. Hope I'm right.

7] I'll have a look at the video and post later...

Yours, Aquina

Ok, I watched the video but could not really see a lot. Did you show me the boot process right from the beginning / the moment when you switched that box on? I saw that you were not able to switch between ttys and I also realized the screen flickers at times (gets brighter, then darker and so on...). It's hard to perform a forensic analysis on that remotely and without logs. Please post them on Pastebin (http://pastebin.com/) as soon as you have got them. Take only the part of the logs which were from the last boot (not entries from the last day/week/month).

Aquina,

Thank you very much for your reply as well as your insight. As my exposure to Ubuntu began at the release of 8.10rc I have not tried 8.04lts. Having heard the term long term support, I am not sure I am in complete understanding of what it means. I will research this.

Looks like the next steps for me are to get rid of the (well fastened) pcmcia card and try again. If I get the same results on an install attempt Ill go in with something that can start up in a live mode and do as you suggested with regards to the logs. Great tip. Thank you! I'll share my findings on pastebin and provide a link here.

My tablet will return to me in two days. It is currently out on loan. On Monday the 30th I will post results of my findings.

My video would have been five minutes long if I started from beginning. I pressed record the moment the condition started. Good reasoning on graphics. Curious comments on Ubuntu server. As I hear its a text only interface. Its performance is legendary by the talk in the forums, Would it make sense to attempt a simple gui on Ubuntu server? Something light like JWM with little deps?

Ill take the video down now and thank you again. looking forward to posing my findings.

Daryl

Ok sorry I have not been in touch up to this point but I have just figured out the problem. The AMD geode CPU wont work with Ubuntu because it not compatible with a i686 kernel.Since that is all all that is packaged these days......

The Ubuntu-MID project would be appropriate for this device but again, kernel.

This link explains it all:

http://appleby.is-a-geek.net/mpcl/index.html

If you know of any other options I am all ears however since Ubuntu is only targeting desktops/servers and only two brands of MID devices I may be better off with something like iMedia linux. Just about everyone on my site www.webdt.org wants ubuntu though. Appreciate the help! Thank you.

Daryl

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