Hi everybody,
I wanted to share an issue I came across during my intents to install Debian wheezy on my PC desktop. After having passed all the installation steps (from image dvds) and asked to launch Debian from grub, the only thing I was able to contemplate was a black screen with a waiting cursor (which I can move with my mouse)!! I'm quite dissapointed to be honest. I was wondering if this was due to my graphic card, an nvidia 9800GX2 (dual GPU card) which connects a dual monitor set-up. This is my very first try of a linux distribution, so I really don't know what to do. Could you guys please provide me with some help? Thanking you in advance.

during install you got a screen to configure your display, probably you missed it or went wrong, Or maybe you did not install all the required packages, I have no idea.
You can try to press ctrl-alt-f1. Can you see the login prompt? can you login (either with your own user or with root)?

Hi Pan64,

The thing is I don't really get the time to enter my logins since the login prompt vanishes almost instantaneously. When I press Ctrl+Alt+F1 I get the login prompt but again doesn't give me enough time to type it before it freezes out. i have that BUG report: BUG:soft lockup-CPU#0 stuck for 24s. I tried to run it on repair mode, I got a lot of code lines,most notably INFO:rcu-bh detected stalls on CPUs/tasks then i had a bunch of NMI backtrace on all cpus that never finished (looping again a again through cpus). Any better idea now ?

Searching the web for the error message does not return any really satisfying. It boils down to some of firmware upgrades, kernel upgrades, cstate disabling or changing the clock source.

What do you mean first repair mode? The recovery mode boot entry? You should have two entries when the boot menu show up. If not used see if you can boot into recovery mode. This should give you a shell from which you can get your system up to date. After log in do a See if that helps. A reboot might be required.

cstates are ways to control the power of the cpus try to disable them in the BIOS and see if that helps.
You could also change the clocksoure of the kernel. For this press you have to adjust the kernel line of the boot loader. I think it was "e" to edit the entry currently highlihted. Just read the boot screen its stated there. So when you are in edit mode move to the line reading "linux /boot/...." using the cursor keys. Now move to the end of the line and add "clocksource=jiffies". F10 for reboot.

Check if there are any BIOS upgrades for your motherboard. And if so maybe apply them.

If the system is running stable in "recovery mode" but not in "normal mode" try to install the official drivers for your GPU from here http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html

By repair mode I mean the second boot option on grub, so yes, it should be the recovery mode you mention. Entering this mode at some point I have the message : Give root password for maintenance. Again, my keyboard is frozen at this stage I can't neither type letters nor proceed further with code lines. I can only press enter or do Ctrl+D to continue but I end up on the black screen again.

I tried to go to the BIOS to see what CPUSs option were. I have an asus P5E3 wifi ap motherboard. There are quite a lot of options regarding CPUs: on the AI tweaker menu I have everything on "auto" (i.e. AI overclock timer, CPU ratio setting, CPU voltage and CPU pll voltage, CPU spread spectrum etc...). On the advanced menu>CPU configuration I have :
CPU ratio setting on "auto", C1E support "Enabled", CPU TM function "Enabled", vandepool technology "Enabled", Execute disable bit "Enabled", Max cpuid value limit "Disabled", Intel(R) Speed step (TM) Tech "Enabled". I don't really know what to look for and tweak here.
When i press "e" on grub , I can read the line you mention: "linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-4-amd64 root=UUID=bb2765dc-8666-4280-84d7-178433da864c ro single" to which i add "clocksource=jiffies" with no changes.

Then i updated BIOS and downloaded the last linux nvidia drivers in the form of a .run file. The updated bios didn't changed anything and i don't know what to do with .run file...

I tried recovery mode again. Nothing. Maybe i will try a new install. Or maybe someone will suggest something new?

Yes this could be the problem. Can you disconnect one monitor or the other one and see what happens. If so and it works you may have to create a custom xorg config file.

Yes I thought abot doing that: i disconnected the non active monitor and same issue. I disconnected the active monitor and set the other one instead, nothing also. I think I'll try a re-install for the fun just to see if something changes. I've been on that install for 3 days now, arf...but i'll keep trying, I really want debian to work!!

Maybe disconnecting the inactive monitor with nomodeset as a boot option will help.

How do I implement that modeset boot option you mentioned? is it a line of code i should add after pressing 'e' on the grub window?

Add at the end of the linux line after hitting the e key and move to the line that starts with linux at the grub menu

Youhou!!!!! Black screen passed !!!!!! Thanks a lot to all for helping me with the debug!! But expect me very very soon, I'm sure I'll be asking a lot more to you guys . Cheers.

That is good. To keep from having to put nomodeset at boot up edit /etc/default/grub and add nomodeset at the end of this line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT. Then . Running may give you a xorg.conf file that will allow you to boot without the nomodeset option.

There we go.

Regarding the .run file you got for the nvidia driver. You have to actually run it. See if double klicking it gives you the option to execute it. If not you have to set the execute permission on the file. Can do so by right klicking, then options or permission. Depends on the desktop software you have installed.

Nother thing with the rescue mode freezing your keyboard. It only seems like that. As you saw for your self ctrl-D worked. Within linux and on the command line its normal that passwords are not printed on the screen. Even no * or other substitution characters. So when you read "Enter the root password or ctrl-D to continue" you just type in your password and hit enter. If you had the right password you'll login.

Hi there,

I edited the grub file but can't save it as I don't have the permissions (grub is owned by "root"). Obviously I am the super user too and have the passwords, so I tried to run the administrator terminal to run the update grub code as suggested. Doesn't seem to update neither. I tried to run the normal terminal too, enter my password (now that I have understood that what you entered doesn't appear on screen) but I got the message: "user" is not in the sudoers files.I was wondering if there was a way to login in Debian as an administrator as opposed to as a simple user. I can't run the nvidia software neither nor some other packages I am trying to install (ecrypts utils for reference). Any ideas?

There should be a menu item called root terminal that when clicked on will ask for the root password. Then you can use a terminal editor such as nano to edit the grub file and run update-grub without the sudo.