tty funnies on new Arch install
 

HP Compaq 8510W
Fresh install of 32-bit Arch

I have had 64-bit Arch running on this laptop without incident---until the last upgrade broke Flash..:( (But that's another story.....)

Now, I have just installed 32-bit Arch and--after doing some setup and configuring--the TTYs quit working. Ctrl-Alt-F1, F2, etc. produces only a brightly-colored screen with random letters and numbers. A re-install cured it, but only for a short while.

The symptoms suggest an issue with a video driver, but I don't know what driver is used when toggling to a TTY.

As I write this, I am running from Ubuntu, and all is well.

Hi Pixellany..

:)

See why I do not upgrade...?

I have this working Arch Install with lots of packages i built from AUR, several others installed in wine... it is reliable, fast, and never broke... :)

BRGDS

Alex

I do acknowledge the pitfalls of rolling-release....

What I found from the Arch forum is that nouveau was running, which in turn started some things relating to KMS and DRM. Blacklising nouveau in rc.conf solved the problem. If I get any more insight, I'll report.