Dell inspiron mini 1010 (Atom Z530 1Gb RAM) won't boot after installing Ubuntu

[Victor Costan]

Binary package hint: ubiquity

I've been trying to install meerkat live (both the desktop i386 and the netbook versions) on my Dell mini 10. The installation goes through, but the system won't boot. I booted into the live CD to collect information from the dead installation. I'll be happy to supply any files you deem useful.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: ubiquity 2.3.19
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-22.32-generic 2.6.35.4
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-22-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Fri Sep 17 10:07:02 2010
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Alpha i386 (20100917)
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: ubiquity
---
Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Alpha i386 (20100917)
NonfreeKernelModules: wl
Package: ubiquity 2.3.19
PackageArchitecture: i386
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-22.32-generic 2.6.35.4
Tags: maverick
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-22-generic i686
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout lpadmin plugdev sambashare

[Evan (ev)]

Please run through a complete install. Before rebooting, run `apport-collect 641161`. This will collect /var/log/syslog, /var/log/installer/debug, and /var/log/partman, and attach them to this bug report.

Thanks!

[Victor Costan (costan)]

apport information

[Victor Costan (costan)]

apport information

[Victor Costan (costan)]

apport information

[Victor Costan (costan)]

apport information

[Victor Costan (costan)]

apport information

[Victor Costan (costan)]

@Evan: I went through the steps in your recommendation, and the data is uploaded to launchpad. Is there anything else I can do to help?

Thank you!

[Victor Costan (costan)]

I just installed 10.04.1 i386 on the netbook, and it boots, so the netbook doesn't seem to have any hardware defects. It seems like a regression to me.

In case it helps figure things out, the 10.04.1 setup shows the Ubuntu logo when loading up (KMS, I'm assuming), and 10.10 shows Ubuntu and blinking dots in text mode.

[Evan (ev)]

Victor,

When you say it doesn't boot, how far does it get? If you hold down the shift key, can you see the bootloader options? Does it get to the blinking dots in text mode on the installed system, or just on the live CD boot? If you can get as far as the Ubuntu logo, try going into the bootloader options (hold shift at boot, then follow the on screen instructions to edit the configuration in place) and remove the 'quiet splash' text from the configuration, then hit control-X to continue booting. Take a picture or make a note of what's on the screen when it stops.

[Victor Costan (costan)]

Hi Evan!

Sorry this took forever.

If I boot without shift pressed, I get a blank text-mode screen with a cursor blinking under the top-left character. No logos, no nothing.

Pressing shift gives me "GRUB loading" on the first line, and a blinking cursor on the first character at the second line. I'm not getting a menu, so I can't mess with boot options.

[Daniel Martinez (entaltoaragon)]

Same problem here. with a Dell mini 12

[david ngo (mister-ngo)]

same problem with acer aspire one a075
If I boot , I get a blank text-mode screen with a cursor blinking

[Victor Costan (costan)]

The bug is still there on the September 27 daily build.

[Evan (ev)]

I cannot reproduce this with today's netbook ISO. I'll investigate further though.

[Victor Costan (costan)]

I can do a failed install, then boot the live ISO again and set up a ssh server so you can take a look at the filesystem. Would that help?

I suspect there's a regression in the grub setup since 10.04.

[Andrew Dain (andyd1)]

I have a Dell Mini 10, and have the same problem. However, I have been able to log into Ubuntu, using the following workaround (and have confirmed that grub is the issue here):

1. Created a new USB boot drive, with Ultimate Boot CD on it and booted into it. (Used the multiboot ISO program from PenDriveLinux to create it)
2. Select HDD -> Boot Management -> Super Grub2 Disk V1.30 (Runs Grub 1.97.2)
3. Selected Boot Ubuntu Gnu/Linux

This got me to a log in screen. Because I have a Poulsbo video chip, I had to go into the desktop edition, not the netbook edition

Tried from a command prompt to do sudo grub-install /dev/sda, but that didn't do anything.

Did an apt-get update. The extras.ubuntu.com one failed. Don't know if that is relevant
Did an apt-get upgrade. Rebooted. Grub still not working.

Did an apt-get remove grub-pc. Ubuntu said grub2 not installed
Did an apt-get install grub-pc grub2. Rebooted. Still no luck. Said it installed Grub 1.98

Did another apt-get remove grub-pc grub2
Did an apt-get install grub. Ran sudo grub-install /dev/sda Rebooted. Got to a prompt, but no menu. Too tired now to figure out why.

Hope this helps.

-Andrew

[Victor Costan (costan)]

I did a fresh install of 10.04.1 on the netbook, then updated to the latest packages on 9/30, then updated to 10.10 via update-manager on the same day. I'm having the same boot issue described before. So the problem seems to be in grub2, not in ubiquity. Since 10.04.1 can boot, this is a regression introduced in 10.10.

[Ameet Paranjape (ameetp)]

Assigning bug to the Foundations team for now.

[discodover (discodover)]

I am also having problems with 10.10 on my Dell Mini 10. Everything installs properly but after reboot all that displays on the screen is a blinking cursor in the upper left hand corner. This has happened with both the netbook version and the full desktop version.

[Martin (martin-o)]

Try disconnecting all USB devices and see if you can boot. I got a blinking cursor as well after an upgrade, but in my case it seems to be a problem with Grubs UHCI driver. If I connect my keyboard to a port driven by a OHCI controller grub starts normally.

[Thomas Furnari (tom-furnari)]

This bug appears to be a compatability issue between grub2 and certain hard disks.

I did a USB install with the same computer (Dell mini 10) and grub2 boots from the USB stick as expected.

For the computer hard disk, I had to downgrade to grub .97 to get it to boot.

[Thomas Furnari (tom-furnari)]

To Andrew Dain: Check your device.map. After I downgraded from grub2, I still had to fix it to get my Mini10 to boot. I can't remember the details now, but you need the commands:

grub-install --recheck /dev/sda

grub-mkdevicemap

I think grub2 messes up the device.map with this harddisk or something like that.

It may be possible to fix it and still boot with grub2, i'm not sure. By the time I'd fixed it, I'd already downgraded.

[Victor Costan (costan)]

@Moles: FWIW, I had no USB devices connected to my Mini throughout the installation and boot process. This doesn't mean grub2's USB drivers are not to blame (maybe the driver gets stuck at initialization time), but removing all USB devices isn't a valid workaround for everyone experiencing this bug.

[Robbie Williamson (robbiew)]

For all following this bug, we are actively debugging this.

[Victor Costan (costan)]

@Robbie: thank you for the good news! Please let me know if I can help by bringing up an sshd on a Mini 1010.

[james craig-brown (james-craigbrown)]

Removing all connected USB devices resolved it for me. Thank you.

[Robbie Williamson (robbiew)]

The upload to Maverick from yesterday should have addressed this problem:
  https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/1.98+20100804-5ubuntu3
Those experiencing this bug, please test the latest daily image for confirmation:
  http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/20101006.2/

[Victor Costan (costan)]

I didn't have a USB stick handy, so I used update-manager -d on a 10.04.1 install. It worked!

Assuming the bug is relegated to grub2, this means it's fixed on my machine. I'll try to do a clean install off the USB stick later today, though.

[Victor Costan (costan)]

I installed off a USB stick and it worked. The bug seems to be fixed, thank you very much!

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Great, thanks for retesting.

[Joshua Krasnow (jmk1)]

Did this get reported upstream? I cannot find it on the Grub2 bug tracker, and I have recently had this problem on a Dell mini 10 with Crunchbang, Debian testing/sid, and aptosid, but not Ubuntu.