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hardware: fujitsu D3313 industrial PC box, containing AMD Embedded GX-210HA with AMD Radeon HD 8210E graphics - Dual Core 1GHz; DVI monitor; Mini-PCI card with 2 off RS485 ports; 2 LAN ports; 4 USB ports; 320GB hard drive
system software: 3.2.0-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.2.84 x86_64 GNU/Linux
The machine was booted from a USB stick, which my colleague (who is not in today) prepared last week. GRUB happliy loaded, eventually I get my login prompt but after giving it, GNOME reports an error - apparently claiming it doesn't like the graphics hardware, although the report doesn't stay on the screen for very long. The system then hangs.
So ... try booting in Recovery Mode. This allows me to execute shell commands (such as uname -a which gave me the system identification quoted above).
Further observations:
1. apt-get insists on seeing a CD-ROM (except there is no CD-ROM drive on the box) - can I persuade apt-get to search a relevant website for packages?
2. There is apparently no gcc compiler. However there are some evidences of gcc components present in the filestore, eg the existence of /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/4.7.2
3. I tried downloading the GNU compiler zip (on another machine), putting it on the USB stick, copying it into the filestore, and doing the usual unzip, configure, install procedure. Natch, followed the instruction about not building in the source directory!. It complained that there wasn't an acceptable C compiler: yes, I'd kind of guessed that, that's why I'm trying to install one?!
Anyway I'd be happier if I could find solutions to the "apt-get won't use the LAN" problem, and the "lack of GCC" problem. I think that if I did, it might be easier to find solutions for the GNOME problem and others that I might come across as i try to install other packages.
hardware: fujitsu D3313 industrial PC box, containing AMD Embedded GX-210HA with AMD Radeon HD 8210E graphics - Dual Core 1GHz; DVI monitor; Mini-PCI card with 2 off RS485 ports; 2 LAN ports; 4 USB ports; 320GB hard drive
system software: 3.2.0-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.2.84 x86_64 GNU/Linux
The machine was booted from a USB stick, which my colleague (who is not in today) prepared last week. GRUB happliy loaded, eventually I get my login prompt but after giving it, GNOME reports an error - apparently claiming it doesn't like the graphics hardware, although the report doesn't stay on the screen for very long. The system then hangs.
Let's take things step by step.
Have you tried running the
Code:
dmesg
command? It may give you useful information about the problem.
jdk
You need to point apt to Debian's repositories by placing an # in front of each of the CD or DVD entries in /etc/apt/sources.list. The easiest way is to log in as root and use nano.
Quote:
3. I tried downloading the GNU compiler zip (on another machine), putting it on the USB stick, copying it into the filestore, and doing the usual unzip, configure, install procedure.
If I interpret this correctly, you are trying to install a package from a third-party repository? Do not. If your system does not have such a package, download one from Debian's repository. But first you will have to edit your sources.list, as per above.
Let's take things step by step.
Have you tried running the
Code:
dmesg
command? It may give you useful information about the problem.
jdk
Thank you. I found:
ACPI Warning: FADT (revision 5) is longer than ACPI 2.0 version, truncating length 268 to 264 (20110623/tbfadt-288)
followed by:
ACPI Warning: OPtional field Pm2ControlBlock has zero address or length ....
later on:
NMI received for unknown reason 3c on CPU 1
Do you have a strange power saving mode enabled?
Dazed and onfused, but trying to continue
As the American Megatrends BIOS looks fairly old, could I conclude that the system being booted is assuming a later revision of ACPI than that which is provided? Or is this configurable in the system build? Sorry, I didn't build this load image, and the guy who did has just quit the company!
You need to point apt to Debian's repositories by placing an # in front of each of the CD or DVD entries in /etc/apt/sources.list. The easiest way is to log in as root and use nano.
If I interpret this correctly, you are trying to install a package from a third-party repository? Do not. If your system does not have such a package, download one from Debian's repository. But first you will have to edit your sources.list, as per above.
Thank you for referring me to /etc/apt/sources.list ...
EDIT have just achieved apt-get install gcc
unfortunately I then attempted to get the lastest gnome stuff which took ages and left me with some school implemetation of debian so I re-installed off the usb stick.
have just edited /etc/apt/sources.list and then tried apt-get install gcc ... but it's failing to to access the net
so I'm going home and will try to think of something else for tomorrow
EDIT #2 the machine apparently cant see the LAN. I tried pinging this computer from it.
EDIT #3 discovered <cntrl><alt><F1> so can get a terminal window with full-blown linux even though GUI is U/S. Includes LAN access Have done apt-get install on gcc and make, have learned the mount command so I can move some code across on a usb stick, it builds & runs, what I need to do next is work out why my RS485 comms don't work ...
Last edited by GEphil; 05-01-2014 at 10:08 AM.
Reason: update
@Randicus Draco Albus 'twas the result of apt-get install gnome* ... but IMO its a red herring please don't trouble yourself with it. As I said, solved by re-installing off usb stick.
I've still got the GNOME error but am circumventing it by <cntrl><alt><F1>
Further observations #1,2,3 from the OP are also resolved.
As far as graphics issue you need to install firmware-nonfree
edit /etc/apt/sources.list & add nonfree contrib to the end of each line.
Thanks, EDDY. The GNOME error report has gone away. The "desktop" appears with its white squirly thing on the blueish background and 4 "Workspace" tabs on the bottom right. Left clicking on any of these gets no response, right clicking gets the workspace switcher preferences control box.
There are no clickable icons for starting things up like terminal windows or an editor or a filestore manager. Is that unusual?
Distribution: Debian Testing, Stable, Sid and Manjaro, Mageia 3, LMDE
Posts: 2,628
Rep:
Take your mouse cursor and jam it up your right top corner of the monitor. This should cause all sorts of fun things to happen.
If it doesn't you definitely have vidio problems. The work space switcher should work I think but the last time I looked at Gnome shell you didn't even have one so I don't know what that is about. The workspace management was the workspaces in use plus one displayed vertically on the left side of the screen.
Your graphics card should handle all of this fine.
I would like a little more detail about what the "stick" is you have mentioned. Is this something you downloaded an image for and copied to the stick yourself? Or was this done by some one else with some strange ideas as to how this is done?
@widget fanx 4 that nudge ... I tried the top RH corner, nothing, but the top LH corner produced a pulldown of things you can start - like a terminal for example. It may be that the "activities" to which @EDDY referred are hidden off the top edge of the screen ...
IIRC the Raspberry Pi has some kind of configuration file that controls the size of the desktop as it appears on the screen. Is similar true of this amd64 Debian build? Where should I look?
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