Can't boot in single-user mode (recovery-mode) on Feisty Fawn, Gutsy Gibbon and Hardy Heron for PowerPC

[frog_pilot]

1.) Hardy Heron powerpc latest build
2.) maybe kernel (2.6.24-14-powerpc-smp)
4.) When I type "Linux single" on yaboot stage 2 bootprompt, the system should boot in single-user mode (without gui) until the command prompt appears.

5.) After typing in "Linux single" the system boots as usual until it comes to the (usplash?) progress-bar when it should switch to the command line, there appear some colored spaces in typical colors of a command-line-gui as you know from midnight commander or partimage (blue background, red foreground, white as a selected lines) but there ar eno letters and no prompt or anything else to figure out what the matter is. I can only make a hard reset.

Related bug: Bug #237189.

[sam tygier (samtygier)]

can you do a normal (not single) boot?
if so, when you do CTRL+ALT+F1 can you see the log in prompt?

[frog_pilot (mpilot)]

No I don't. The VT's seem to be dead. Only the setupcon-command will solve the matter. But because of the different situation on single-user mode, I can't even log in blindly to execute setupcon. (normally in single-user mode you are still loggged in as root, when my memories are right....) Did you have the same issue when booting in single-user mode?

[jyks (jyks)]

This happens even on amd64 hardy build (upgraded from gutsy).
single-user mode boot results in a ncurses like display but with no text.
In normal-boot VTs only have blinking cursor without any text. The cursors are positioned where it should be if there was text. I can login into console & type commands in blind and they work. Also setupcon does not seem to work for me!

[frog_pilot (mpilot)]

Problem remains with new kernel 2.6.24-14-powerpc-smp

[jyks (jyks)]

The problem seems to be fixed from me after the latest updates (kernel - 2.6.24-16-generic).
The console text is visible & in single user-mode ncurses dialog also has visible text.

[usr (usrlp-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

The same problem in my iMac G3 with ubuntu-8.04-alternate-powerpc image.
I can not boot the system.

[usr (usrlp-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

Affects too to Xubuntu 8.04.

[oRo (oorochimaru)]

Works fine on my iBook G4 with the Heron and both 2.6.22-14-powerpc 2.6.24-17-powerpc

Doesn't see this ? --> http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/5517/img0016wo3.jpg

Do you see a black screen when the kernel's launching ?

[usr (usrlp-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

It is impossible view the screen in my machine, because when the system starts and it is go to show upstart, the system shuts down my machine, and I can not configure or unnistall usplash because "Linux single" option is not present.

[usr (usrlp-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

Sorry, my machine is iMac G3.
Related bug: Bug #237189

[frog_pilot (mpilot)]

@ oRo I can see the menu, you provided as jpeg, but I cant navigate through these options, because my input wont be recognized properly by the system. E.G. when I press up-arrow I get something like "[]]|K" in white on red on the display. Every key has an output similar to this. no key functions as usual.

Since I have no possibility to interact with the system in this way, i have to do a hard reset...

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

I'm afraid I have no idea where this bug belongs, but it doesn't belong on yaboot-installer (which is the installer component responsible for creating yaboot configuration).

[xteejx (xteejx)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering is this still an issue for you? Can you try with latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance. Marking as Incomplete for now, but if you do have any more problems with the latest release, please re-open/comment.

[Felipe Venegas (fvenegas)]

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to New. Thanks again!.

[Ryan (barnesry)]

confirmed this is still an issue on 2.6.28-6-powerpc Jaunty Jackalope

Boot to "Linux single" results in a screen similar to http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/5517/img0016wo3.jpg

However, ncurses navigation is broken. This is on a iBook G4 PPC.

model : powerbook6,7
motherboard : Powerbook6,7 MacRISC3 Power Macintosh
detected as : 287 (iBookG4)
pmac-generation : NewWorld