trilarian
12-27-2007, 01:42 PM
I don't know where this came from, but I have a Debian box at work that has been working fine for a couple years now that suddenly lost all the ctrl-alt-f* screens except the Xorg server(F7). When I hit ctrl-alt-F1 for example, I get a "no signal" on my monitor then the monitor goes into power safe mode. I use these multiple full screen terminals a lot, so this really shocked me when they just suddenly vanished. This happens for all the terminal screens F1-F6. Help please... o.O
JohnT
12-27-2007, 10:04 PM
What have you updated or changed recently?
What do you use as a boot manager? Have you made changes to it?
trilarian
12-28-2007, 02:03 PM
Only "change" would be the usual:
apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
I've run this a few times since then to make sure it wasn't a faulty package, plus I don't hear any uproar on the Debian channels about this.
Booting with Grub. I have not made any changes, however the apt-get upgrade will occasionally update to a new sub version of the kernel and make an entry into the grub menu list. Here is the relevant part of my current /boot/grub/menu.lst I am currently booted into 2.6.22-3-686(first option).
## ## End Default Options ##
title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.22-3-686
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-3-686 root=/dev/hda2 ro
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-3-686
savedefault
title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.22-3-686 (recovery mode)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-3-686 root=/dev/hda2 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-3-686
savedefault
title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.22-2-686
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-2-686 root=/dev/hda2 ro
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-2-686
savedefault
title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.22-2-686 (recovery mode)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-2-686 root=/dev/hda2 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-2-686
savedefault
title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.22-1-686
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-1-686 root=/dev/hda2 ro
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-1-686
savedefault
title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.22-1-686 (recovery mode)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-1-686 root=/dev/hda2 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-1-686
savedefault
title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.21-2-686
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.21-2-686 root=/dev/hda2 ro
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.21-2-686
savedefault
title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.21-2-686 (recovery mode)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.21-2-686 root=/dev/hda2 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.21-2-686
savedefault
title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.21-1-686
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.21-1-686 root=/dev/hda2 ro
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.21-1-686
savedefault
title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.21-1-686 (recovery mode)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.21-1-686 root=/dev/hda2 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.21-1-686
savedefault
title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.18-4-686
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-4-686 root=/dev/hda2 ro
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.18-4-686
savedefault
title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.18-4-686 (recovery mode)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-4-686 root=/dev/hda2 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.18-4-686
savedefault
title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.18-3-686
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-3-686 root=/dev/hda2 ro
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.18-3-686
savedefault
title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.18-3-686 (recovery mode)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-3-686 root=/dev/hda2 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.18-3-686
savedefault
### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST
JohnT
12-31-2007, 07:34 AM
The Ubuntu forums have a lengthy discussion with a couple of fixes you might want to check out as they might relate to your system.
HERE (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=582962)
Keep us informed as to your progress.:p
trilarian
01-03-2008, 12:22 PM
Now that I'm done messing with fuppes, I turned to this issue. I tried everything in the post, but did not come up with a solution yet.
Things suggested:
- Remove "quiet", vga=, and splash from /boot/grub/menu.lst
- modprobe vga16fb fbcon
- Change /etc/X11/xorg.conf to 16 bit depth
Results:
- None of these options in there to start with.
- vga16fb loaded, fbcon module not found. Caused terminals to go from black to black with a solid moving pink bar that slowly engulfs the full screen. Neither option lets me see the actual terminal.
- No noticable difference
So I tried nohup chvt 1 - there wasn't any error messages in nohup.out. At this point I would guess it is the display driver, but I didn't think they were still updating this old driver - using i810. Relevant part of xorg.conf below, but all of this has been working for years with the same config files and then broke after an apt-get upgrade. So I would assume this is a bug not a config problem.
Section "Device"
Identifier "Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device"
Driver "i810"
BusID "PCI:0:2:0"
Option "UseFBDev" "true"
EndSection
JohnT
01-03-2008, 07:17 PM
Then you will need to backtrack and try to determine what broke what.