no image when booting with GeForce 8400M

[Marius Vasilescu]

Binary package hint: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau

Lucid Beta2 (live CD) / Dell Inspiron 1520 / GeForce 8400M GS

After choosing the 'Try Ubuntu without changes on the system', I got for 1-2 seconds a black screen terminal (only the cursor was visible), after that a weird screen and finally sort of a grey screen. I've attached the last two screen images.

It switched between terminals, but the display didn't change at all. For instance, ctrl+alt+f2, "sudo reboot", enter, enter = reboots the system. I found it odd since I thought the terminals didn't use the noveau driver.

"blacklist=vga16fb nouveau.noaccel=1" params didn't work, however the "nouveau.fakeparam=yes" workaround worked.

---
Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
DkmsStatus: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
GdmLog1: Error: command ['cat', '/var/log/gdm/:0.log.1'] failed with exit code 1: cat: /var/log/gdm/:0.log.1: No such file or directory
GdmLog2: Error: command ['cat', '/var/log/gdm/:0.log.2'] failed with exit code 1: cat: /var/log/gdm/:0.log.2: No such file or directory
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Alpha i386 (20100416)
MachineType: Dell Inc. Inspiron 1520
Package: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:0.0.15+git20100219+9b4118d-0ubuntu5
PackageArchitecture: i386
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/casper/vmlinuz noprompt cdrom-detect/try-usb=true file=/cdrom/preseed/hostname.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.lz quiet splash nouveau.fakeparam=yes
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-21.31-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Tags: lucid lucid
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-21-generic i686
UserGroups:

dmi.bios.date: 07/11/2008
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: A09
dmi.board.name: 0KY768
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.chassis.type: 8
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrA09:bd07/11/2008:svnDellInc.:pnInspiron1520:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn0KY768:rvr:cvnDellInc.:ct8:cvr:
dmi.product.name: Inspiron 1520
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.
glxinfo: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
system:
 distro: Ubuntu
 codename: lucid
 architecture: i686
 kernel: 2.6.32-21-generic

[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

I've just tried the latest live-cd daily build (16-Apr-2010) and the bug isn't fixed.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Hi Marius,

Thanks for including an image to demonstrate the issue. Also, please run the command 'apport-collect BUGNUMBER' which will attach additional files we need.

[This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

apport information

[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

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[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

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[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

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[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

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[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

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[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

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[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

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[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

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[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

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[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

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[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

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[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

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[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

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[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

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[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

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[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

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[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

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[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

I've just tried my luck, installing the RC by using "nouveau.fakeparam=yes". Obviously, the fresh ubuntu didn't work, but I could collect the Xorg.log file. The logs before this were from the live CD with the fakeparam thing.

[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

the final release has the same issue..

[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

the bug is still present in ubuntu 10.04.1 & 10.10-beta

[Chris Halse Rogers (raof)]

Hm. So, what appears to be happening here - from your picture - is that nouveau doesn't know how to drive your laptop display. I presume the binary nvidia driver works in this case?

If the binary nvidia driver works, it's likely that an mmio-trace of it correctly initialising the display will be useful for fixing this. You can check out the howto here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/MMIOTracing

[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

Thanks for pointing that out, Chris. I've attached the mmio-trace log.

I've also filled bug #747338 related to this bug, but also to other non-working nouveau cards. Maybe you find the time to have a quick look and review it.

[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

A simple solution to this bug has been posted on nouveau's bug tracker. Maybe it could be included in the final release?

Using one of the two options "nouveau.uscript_lvds=0x0100" or "nouveau.uscript_lvds=0x0300" solves this problem.

[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

The bug has been fixed upstream. I've just did the testing against the latest kernel that has a more recent nouveau version than oneiric and it worked. You can have a look at the upstream bug for more info.

[Marius Vasilescu (vegancorr)]

Fixed with the shipping of kernel 3.0 in Oneiric Alpha2.