Boot goes blank with all options

[Ark42]

v6.0.1 worked for me in the past, but I was trying to mount an EFI GPT HFS+ Mac partition on a SATA drive, and it wasn't working. I downloaded v6.4.3 in hopes it had support for GPT and burned that to a CD, but now it just goes to a blank screen no matter what I try. It acts like things are loading, and even after the activity LED on my computer case stops blinking, pressing the Reset button will cause some more activity, followed by a the CD being ejected after I press Enter, even though I can't see a thing on the screen.

I tried: knoppix vga=0, knoppix vga=0 debug -b 3, and failsafe debug -b 3 but they all more or less immediately go to a blank screen.

Hardware is:
Abit KN9 SLI nForce 570 SLI
Athlon X2 4200+ 2.2Ghz (Socket AM2)
3GB DDR2 (2x 1GB + 2x 512MB)
Asus GeForce 7600GS 512MB DDR2 (PCI Express)
250GB 7200rpm Hitachi SATA drive
52x CD-ROM (IDE)

no floppy, no DVD or burner on this computer.

Using PS/2 keyboard, Microsoft USB Laser Mouse 6000, and a Samsung SyncMaster 940BF 19" LCD. I normally only have DVI hooked up, but as the video card has a VGA output as well, I tried that just to check. Still blank screen there.

[Werner P. Schulz]

... first of all check integrity of download

md5sum -c KNOPPIX_V6.4.3CD-2010-12-20-EN.iso.md5

After burning CD reinsert CD and check with

md5sum /dev/sr0

if this checksum differ from downloaded checksum or not.

Greetings Werner * http://www.wp-schulz.de/knoppix/summary.html
"Build personal Recovery-CD with Knoppix (Knoppix remaster)"

[Ark42]

md5sum is correct, and matches the CD. I burned another copy with Nero and checked Verify Data. It verified fine as well, and still has the same md5sum, as well as the same issue on boot.

[Ark42]

Found something that helps. If I use "knoppix xmodule=svga" then I get to stare at a black screen for 2-3 minutes while things boot, and eventually, the X desktop appears. If I try to ctrl+alt+F1 to get a text terminal, it just goes black again and I can't ctrl+alt+F5 to get back to X.

The whole time (BIOS screen, boot prompt, black screen while booting, X desktop, and black screen for text terminal) the monitor info screen says "DIGITAL 63.9kHz 60Hz PP 1280x1024" and never changes.

The last things I can see before the long black screen boot process are:
boot: knoppix xmodule=svga
Loading linux...........

Loading minirt.gz..........ready.
(screen clears/blinks once)
Probing EDD (edd=off to disable)... ok

Decompressing Linux... Parsing ELF... done.
Booting the kernel.
(screen clears)

[krishna.murphy]

Sounds like you need to look up the driver for your video device in Google. There is a lot of activity in that arena under another Linux variant called Ubuntu. Most any debian-based system (as Knoppix is) can use the same stuff. If all else fails, you can sometimes use the Windows driver, but it's usually a lot of work.

Cheers!
Krishna

[Ark42]

As I posted above (hasn't shown up yet due to moderation) xmodule=svga works (sorta) and Knoppix 6.0.1 worked by default with no special boot parameters.
I don't think there is anything special about a moderately old GeForce 7600GS or PCI Express that would make this card unsupported. Something has changed between 6.0.1 and 6.4.3 to break this though.

[krishna.murphy]

Found something that helps. If I use "knoppix xmodule=svga" then I get to stare at a black screen for 2-3 minutes while things boot, and eventually, the X desktop appears. If I try to ctrl+alt+F1 to get a text terminal, it just goes black again and I can't ctrl+alt+F5 to get back to X.

This is not as it should be, but the key-combos don't seem to work as usual for me, either. I have had to use

chvt 1

to switch to the first virtual terminal; once there, the key-combos work again until you're back in X. You can also open a terminal in X from the icon that looks like a terminal on the bottom left. Don't forget use "sudo" or "sudo su" if you need root privileges (which those virtual terminals have, by default.)

Cheers!
Krishna

[Ark42]

Ctrl+LeftAlt+F1 should do the exact same thing as "chvt 1"
Sometimes you need to add +Shift to the mix to get out of X, but either way, I am getting out of X and not seeing a text terminal like I'm used to. Yes, I can open a virtual terminal in X just fine, but I'm trying to add information to the video problem I'm seeing here.

Side note: using xmodule=svga and a virtual terminal to work around my graphic issue: I was able to mount a GPT HFS+ partition on a SATA drive just fine with Knoppix 6.4.3, so for anybody who saw my first post where 6.0.1 did not work: The feature was added to Knoppix at some point and it works great to copy data from Mac drives.

[klaus2008]

I don't think there is anything special about a moderately old GeForce 7600GS or PCI Express that would make this card unsupported. Something has changed between 6.0.1 and 6.4.3 to break this though.

There is an important difference between Knoppix 6.0.1 and Knoppix 6.4.3 in the way it supports NVIDIA graphics adapters. Knoppix 6.4.3 comes with the nouveau graphics driver in addition to xorg's nv graphics driver. On the web page http://knopper.net/knoppix/knoppix64-en.html Klaus Knopper writes

The new nouveau graphics drivers do not support each and every NVidia graphics adapter equally good yet; some cards don't support changing resolution, or some of the acellerated 3D functions won't work.

Klaus Knopper provides the solution to use the cheatcode

knoppix nomodeset xmodule=nv

at the boot prompt. I think that Knoppix 6.4.3 uses the nouveau graphics driver by default if a modern NVIDIA graphics adapter was detected. Thus I would suggest that you try the cheatcode in order to use the nv graphics driver instead.

[krishna.murphy]

Ctrl+LeftAlt+F1 should do the exact same thing as "chvt 1"

No argument here! However, it's not working in Knoppix 6.2.0, and chvt 1 does. What happens when you use it?

Sometimes you need to add +Shift to the mix to get out of X, but either way, I am getting out of X and not seeing a text terminal like I'm used to.

NO combo works in my case. So, in your case the screen is just black? I'm curious what happens when you use chvt.

Yes, I can open a virtual terminal in X just fine, but I'm trying to add information to the video problem I'm seeing here.

Side note: using xmodule=svga and a virtual terminal to work around my graphic issue: I was able to mount a GPT HFS+ partition on a SATA drive just fine with Knoppix 6.4.3, so for anybody who saw my first post where 6.0.1 did not work: The feature was added to Knoppix at some point and it works great to copy data from Mac drives.

Cheers!
Krishna