Regression: Screen hangs during text-install

[Aaron Whitehouse]

I did a text install of Dapper RC from the Alternative Install CD. I have a Dell Inspiron 510m with an Intel i855 Graphics card.

When the installer is installing all of the packages, it gets to about 60% and then starts doing things with the Xorg packages. On Dapper Beta it flashed to a black screen with two white rectangles and then went back to the installer where you could watch the status bar etc.

This time it got to that point and never returned to the installer from the black screen with two white rectangles. The installation continued in the background and, because I knew the questions following that step weren't too important, I could just press enter - enter when the CDRom and HD stopped doing things and complete the install.

[Aaron Whitehouse (aaron-whitehouse)]

Here is a photo of the screen as it is for the last half of the install.

The package on which it hangs is the configuration of "xserver-install".

Sadly, I repeated the install and the problem occurs each time.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

I think this is the fault of the component responsible for probing X resolution, not of the installer itself.

[Aaron Whitehouse (aaron-whitehouse)]

Just in case it is important, I have a 1400x1050 screen that isn't natively supported by X (Bug #6271). It always just defaults back to 1280x1024 but I thought it could have something to do with the new bug.

[Aaron Whitehouse (aaron-whitehouse)]

Unfortunately, this regression made it on to the Dapper Final CDs, so anyone trying to put Dapper on my hardware will think that the install has died.

[Edu (martinez-bernal)]

I got the same problem. As I mentioned in #48106, in grub menu (just when installation begins), I selected 1024x768 vga resolution and the problem was gone.

[Manuel López-Ibáñez (manuellopezibanez)]

@Colin,

Very likely, bug 46777 and bug 48106 are duplicates of this one.

[Aaron Whitehouse (aaron-whitehouse)]

I agree with Manu - they all look to be dealing with the same issue.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

I would rather let the xresprobe maintainer (i.e. not me) determine whether these bugs should be duplicates. It's entirely possible, for instance, that it's a similar bug affecting multiple different graphics chipsets.

[lsyn (daniel-jones)]

I experienced this same problem on my Gateway laptop. It didn't seem to hinder the actual installation at all, just my ability to see it.

However, now I'm curious as to what causes this problem. Someone mentioned X, but (possible naive question) is the X-windows system even up at that point, since it is a text-based install? Anyone have a theory?

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

lsyn: A part of X is run during the installer in order to configure the X window system for later.

[Aaron Whitehouse (aaron-whitehouse)]

BTW - this does not happen in Edgy RC alternate, but does in 6.06.1.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

No justification for being marked Fix Released was given; reopening until it's demonstrated that it's been fixed properly (as opposed to just anecdotally fixed for a single user).

[Aaron Whitehouse (aaron-whitehouse)]

No problems with this in Feisty on this laptop (thankfully, given I
can't install with the Desktop CD!)

[Aaron Whitehouse (aaron-whitehouse)]

Shall we close this now? I (the reporter) have had no issues on any milestone since and nobody else has commented that it still occurs.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Not closing just yet.

Please, could those who have seen the problem test gutsy, for instance?

[Aaron Whitehouse (aaron-whitehouse)]

As I suggested, Gutsy Tribe 5 works for me.

[Aaron Whitehouse (aaron-whitehouse)]

I wouldn't have thought that this was a duplicate, actually, Bryce. You obviously know a lot more about all of this than I do, however!

From Bug #127008 it looks as though the problem is in the -intel driver. The -intel driver wasn't even used in Dapper, if I am not mistaken. According to that bug:
> The issues appears to have all been noticed in August, around tribe3/tribe4.
Which is clearly well after I filed this (May 2006).

It therefore seems that they are two separate bugs. Given that the one that I had occurring in Dapper is no longer occurring for me, and I have suggested that this bug be closed anyway, I have no problem with this being duped.