LiveCD boot hangs before desktop is shown

[DCmartiX]

Per my query to Steve Langasek, he instructed me to submit a new bug. I have tried 5 downloads of 10.4 among alpha/beta, as well as Ubuntu, Xubuntu, and Lubuntu. Not one of them has ever gotten to the desktop. The last two (betas for Ubuntu and Lubuntu) finally got to an error:

init: ureadahead-other main process (xxxx) terminated with status 4

All CD processing stops; the desktop never appears. I have to use a paperclip to force eject the CD and then use the power button to shutdown. (Note: the very first 3 CDs only displayed a blue bar across the bottom of the screen and never even got to an error.)

I have a pre-installed system since 7.10; have faithfully done every update/upgrade; and only have these extras: Xiphos, GRAMPS, and BOINC (but the BOINC was a binary). As these are on my HD, they probably mean nothing to the Live CD situation.

The HW, which I have not ever changed, is: MSI P4M890M3-V motherboard (onboard video, sound, LAN), Samsung SyncMaster 152N monitor, Logitech keyboard, and Dynex mouse. Other CDs (latest PC-BSD and even GhostBSD) will boot to their desktops.

I am just worried that an online update/upgrade will prevent my HD from booting.

Thank you.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

The blue bar across the bottom of the screen marks that as an alpha, not a beta. Please focus on the beta images; there's no sense in testing the obsolete alphas now.

Can you attach the output of 'lspci' from this system?

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

As mentioned in email, the ureadahead message is not a failure and is unrelated to the hang you experience. Mentioning this here lest someone else try to triage the bug based on that message.

[DCmartiX (arthur-martinson)]

The output from lspci is attached as "lspci.txt".

Marti

On Wed, 2010-03-24 at 06:09 +0000, Steve Langasek wrote:
> The blue bar across the bottom of the screen marks that as an alpha, not
> a beta. Please focus on the beta images; there's no sense in testing
> the obsolete alphas now.
>
> Can you attach the output of 'lspci' from this system?
>
> ** Changed in: ubuntu
> Status: New => Incomplete
>

[DCmartiX (arthur-martinson)]

Here is the output from lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. P4M890 Host Bridge
00:00.1 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. P4M890 Host Bridge
00:00.2 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. P4M890 Host Bridge
00:00.3 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. P4M890 Host Bridge
00:00.4 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. P4M890 Host Bridge
00:00.5 PIC: VIA Technologies, Inc. P4M890 I/O APIC Interrupt Controller
00:00.6 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. P4M890 Security Device
00:00.7 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. P4M890 Host Bridge
00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237/VX700 PCI Bridge
00:02.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. P4M890 PCI to PCI Bridge Controller
00:03.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. P4M890 PCI to PCI Bridge Controller
00:0f.0 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VIA VT6420 SATA RAID Controller (rev 80)
00:0f.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81)
00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81)
00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81)
00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81)
00:10.4 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 86)
00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 ISA bridge [KT600/K8T800/K8T890 South]
00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 60)
00:12.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102 [Rhine-II] (rev 78)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. P4M890 [S3 UniChrome Pro] (rev 01)

(PS: I did not know about the alpha blue bar being standard. I have never tried an alpha before.)

[DCmartiX (arthur-martinson)]

Just tried Ubuntu 10.4 Beta2. I burned it to CD at the slowest speed. The error message did not appear, but it still stops before the desktop. Could someone just provide me their "gut" instinct as to whether I should even try 10.4 LTS or just go to Linux Mint 8 - which I have burned and it does get to desktop. Thanks.

[DCmartiX (arthur-martinson)]

Could this be related to 544815? (I tried to edit comment #5, but cannot figure out how to do it. I did not mean two write "error message" but should have said "ureadahead message did not appear." Sorry.)

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

There's not enough information here, or in bug #544815, to say whether these are related.

If you remove 'splash' from the boot options, does this change the behavior?

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

This seems most likely to be a bug in the X driver, so assigning there.

[DCmartiX (arthur-martinson)]

With respect to Comment #7, Mr. Langasek, is that something that I can do as a LiveCD user? I will have to re-download a 10.4 iso, but is that iteration fairly simple to do with boot options? I apologize if that is a lame question.....

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

To set the boot options from the live CD, press a key when the first Ubuntu splash screen appears, then choose your language, then one of the function keys will let you change your boot options (I think it's F6).

[DCmartiX (arthur-martinson)]

I am the author of this "bug". I have just tried the 10.4 LTS Release Live CD and it did boot to the desktop. I will, of course, be upgrading via the net or, perhaps, the Alternate Install CD; but the LiveCD problem appears to have been fixed. Whatever your CM "bug" flow process is, please consider this for closure - either as a dupe, as it stated, or OBE. Overcome by Events, not Order of the British Empire. ;)

[DCmartiX (arthur-martinson)]

Ditto for Lubuntu 10.4. It will now boot to the LXDE desktop. Works fine.

[Peter Belew (peterbe)]

In my case, the live CD boots the the point where the Welcome screen
appears. I then click on the 'Try Ubuntu' button, and the system tries
to log in (as 'ubuntu') and fails - then a log in dialog appears. If I
try to log in explicitly as 'ubuntu' - with a blank password - the
screen goes blank after a few seconds - then the login screen appears
again; this repeats indefinitely.

So the bug is not fixed -- see my report:

   https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/508456

On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 3:27 PM, DCmartiX <email address hidden> wrote:
> *** This bug is a duplicate of bug 508456 ***
>    https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/508456
>
> Ditto for Lubuntu 10.4. It will now boot to the LXDE desktop. Works
> fine.
>
> --
> LiveCD boot hangs before desktop is shown
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/545367
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug (via bug 508456).
>

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