Unable to see consoles when switching from X

worldwise001 · 01-31-2009, 06:48 PM

Hey all,

For some reason, switching from X (via Ctrl-Alt-F1, etc.) to the console seems to bring up a blank screen. X seems to be completely unaffected; I can use Alt-F7 to switch back, and continue normally. I am pretty certain the consoles themselves are responsive, just that I'm not getting any visual feedback for some reason. On runlevel 3, I can boot up just fine to a console, but once I start X (using startx), then try to switch back, there is no visual feedback.

I /think/ this may have to do with the nVidia drivers (180.22) I installed to get proper OpenGL/resolution support, although I'm not sure.

Any ideas?

I'm using Slackware 12.2 on a MSI GX630 laptop.

Thanks in advance.

pixellany · 01-31-2009, 08:40 PM

Try ctrl-alt-F2 (and F3, F4, F5, and F6)

Normally, there are consoles at F1, F2 and F3; but some distros are different.

Quote:

I /think/ this may have to do with the nVidia drivers (180.22) I installed to get proper OpenGL/resolution support, although I'm not sure.

Probably not...

AlucardZero · 01-31-2009, 09:45 PM

ps -ef | grep tty

do you see gettys on tty1 etc?

Code:

alucard@thrawn:~$ ps -ef | grep tty
alucard   2404  4092  0 22:45 pts/0    00:00:00 grep tty
root      3730  3709  7 12:10 tty7     00:50:39 /usr/X11R6/bin/X :0 -audit 0 -auth /var/lib/gdm/:0.Xauth -nolisten tcp vt7
root      3924     1  0 12:10 tty1     00:00:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty1
root      3925     1  0 12:10 tty2     00:00:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty2
root      3926     1  0 12:10 tty3     00:00:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty3
root      3927     1  0 12:10 tty4     00:00:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty4
root      3928     1  0 12:10 tty5     00:00:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty5
root      3929     1  0 12:10 tty6     00:00:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty6

If not, edit /etc/inittab (this is a Very Important File, back it up) to be similar to:

Code:

# Note that on most Debian systems tty7 is used by the X Window System,
# so if you want to add more getty's go ahead but skip tty7 if you run X.
1:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty1
2:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty2
3:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty3
4:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty4
5:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty5
6:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty6

and run /sbin/init q

worldwise001 · 02-01-2009, 12:11 AM

pixellany:

Slackware by default on runlevel 3 has consoles on F1 through F6; switching through all of them yields no results (blank screen), and going back to F7 shows X still happily running.

alucard:

yes, all the gettys are shown to be running.

Code:

root      3187     1  0 Jan31 tty2     00:00:00 /sbin/agetty 38400 tty2 linux
root      3188     1  0 Jan31 tty3     00:00:00 /sbin/agetty 38400 tty3 linux
root      3189     1  0 Jan31 tty4     00:00:00 /sbin/agetty 38400 tty4 linux
root      3190     1  0 Jan31 tty5     00:00:00 /sbin/agetty 38400 tty5 linux
root      3191     1  0 Jan31 tty6     00:00:00 /sbin/agetty 38400 tty6 linux

Note: tty1 isn't shown, mainly because I'm on runlevel 3 and ran startx on tty1. Before starting X, I can switch to any of the consoles just fine; it's only after X is running/has run that visual feedback seems to be lost.

Thanks for the replies.

EDIT: Oh, and when I mean blank screen, I mean a totally blank screen, no blinking cursor, nothing. I'm not sure if the LCD screen is even powering up.

worldwise001 · 02-01-2009, 06:22 PM

After some fiddling, here's an update on what I've discovered:

Temporarily I switched to using the vesa driver for X instead of the propriety nvidia one (by editing xorg.conf), then started X up. I was able to get a display output when I switched back to consoles F1-F6. Shutting down X, then switching back to the nvidia driver once again yielded blank screens for the consoles on F1-F6.

I've tried different nvidia drivers from their website, specifically 177.82 and the prerelease 180.27. The problem still persists.

I tried using no framebuffer vs vesafb. Both work fine, but once X starts with the nvidia driver, the consoles become blank.

Any suggestions to this problem would be appreciated. If it helps, I'm using the stock kernel in Slackware 12.2, 2.6.27.7 with smp support. The chipset of this machine is a 9600M GT.

i92guboj · 02-01-2009, 07:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by worldwise001

After some fiddling, here's an update on what I've discovered:

Temporarily I switched to using the vesa driver for X instead of the propriety nvidia one (by editing xorg.conf), then started X up. I was able to get a display output when I switched back to consoles F1-F6. Shutting down X, then switching back to the nvidia driver once again yielded blank screens for the consoles on F1-F6.

I've tried different nvidia drivers from their website, specifically 177.82 and the prerelease 180.27. The problem still persists.

I tried using no framebuffer vs vesafb. Both work fine, but once X starts with the nvidia driver, the consoles become blank.

Any suggestions to this problem would be appreciated. If it helps, I'm using the stock kernel in Slackware 12.2, 2.6.27.7 with smp support. The chipset of this machine is a 9600M GT.

I've never seen that, but for the sound of it, it really seems like your framebuffer driver is conflicting in some strange way with the nvidia module. Can you try to boot on text-only mode without framebuffer at all?

worldwise001 · 02-01-2009, 08:55 PM

I can boot text-only mode just fine without any framebuffer on. It's only when X starts that the display for the console mysteriously vanishes.

I'm thinking this might be an nVidia bug.

I've found other users' suggestions for fixing this, one of them includes passing parameters to the nvidia module. However, I'm not entirely sure how to do this. Help anyone?

tredegar · 02-02-2009, 01:41 AM

You could try adding vga=normal to your kernel boot line

worldwise001 · 02-02-2009, 04:22 PM

I did, as mentioned above. Problem persists. I believe the problem is independent of what is set for console (ie, using a framebuffer vs not using a framebuffer), and instead has to do with whatever thing the nvidia module has set.

tredegar · 02-03-2009, 09:22 AM

Are you sure you are using the correct NVIDIA driver?
Maybe try using an older one (that is for your card)
Or you could try reading / posting here: http://forums.nvidia.com/

vagsoftware · 03-18-2009, 10:34 AM

Same problem, Acer Aspire 5930, NVIDIA 9600GT, 4GB DDR2, 320GB WDC HDD. Obviously it's a conflict between nvidia driver and framebuffer, I tried every kind of boot mode with vga attributes, but nothing productive happend. Also X configurations with special flags and special options - nothing. The problem does not exist in the default driver nv. My theory is that it is a conflict between kernel, acpi supported by hardware and nvidia drivers. I'm using Mandriva 2009.0 with kernel-server x86 32. Just for now I don't have any resolution. Others???

vagsoftware · 03-19-2009, 08:31 AM

Even if you use vga=normal at boot time after ko si loaded into kernel terminals become blank. I don't know if it is out of range for the lcd or not because the box is a laptop computer.