Fedora 17 Macbook blank screen
 

I've installed Fedora 17 on my MacBook, clean install, previously had 16 on it.

I've completed the install, and it seems to work ok with one glaring exception.

I installed it with an external monitor installed, and the external works perfectly. The laptop screen, however turns black after the initial grub screen, and is not usable at all, even if the machine is started cold with the external monitor disconnected. To enter the decryption key for the hard disk, I have to hook the monitor back up, as the prompt is only visible on the external monitor. The laptop screen never picks up after Grub.

Any ideas?

what happens if you boot into runlevel 3, console only mode?

the laptop screen may not support the resolution that the boot loader is trying to display in runlevel 5.

I didn't get a chance to try that. I need the laptop for the weekend, so I installed Ubuntu, which seems to be working fine.

I tried booting the machine from the live DVD without the monitor hooked up. Same problem.
However, I did let the machine boot, and SSH'd into it. xrandr gave an error that no displays were available. (paraphrased)

I'll try to pick this up after SELF and try to troubleshoot.

a display to xrander is a grouping of video card, monitor, mouse and keyboard. Anyone of those can keep xrander from seeing a display. The resolution would come from the monitor settings but sounds more like a video card problem. When in ubuntu go to a cmd line and type lsmod. See if you can see a video driver, post the output from lsmod if you are not sure. Sounds like the vid card module isn't loading or it is loading the wrong module.

Ubuntu has done a ton of work to make linux more useable for people. This is why it is working in Ubuntu and not in Fedora. If it can work in one it can work in all its just a matter of figuring out what part of ubuntu is allowing it to work and moving those settings to Fedora.

I'm pretty sure it's the monitor. With the external plugged in, it booted fine. With the monitor disconnected, I got the previous error message.


The strange thing is that this arrangement worked fine with Fedora 16. I went and did several user's group presentations, switching between my external monitor, standalone with only the laptop screen, and projectors with no problem. Something must have changed with F17.

After Southeast Linux Fest, I'll tackle this problem again, because I need the laptop working for that, and don't want to reformat right now.

maybe the combination of noveau driver, video card and your laptop screen. Cant match up a resolution or color count or something...

Since it happened during install just using the install disk but NOT doing the install would allow you to narrow down the problem and not risk the current load. Just be able to start the install in cui mode would tell you if the problem was a reso setting or not. Odd it cant detect your screen i havent had a problem like that with Fedora in a LONG time.

Did you ever have any luck with this? I just did virtually the same install as the OP with my Sony VAIO. With my external monitor hooked up things are fine, but when disconnected and trying to use the laptop screen it goes black after the GRUB screen and nothing ever happens. System boots up fine but can't get visual display to work.

Sorry, haven't had a chance to attack it again since the Southeast Linuxfest. Will try to get some time over the weekend, but I'll be visiting with family, so it's a maybe. I did talk to the Fedora folks, and they said it was a known bug on the webpage, but I haven't followed up yet.

I've cut it down to what looks relevant. Here is the lsmod from Ubuntu. (IIRC, it looks pretty much the same from Fedora, I'll reboot and post from there.)

So, here's the relevant output from Fedora 17.

Looks like more going on than in U. I'm not sure what to make of all of it.

seeing as you can boot on external monitor fine but you cant boot on laptop, right after grub menu. It has to be a resolution issue.

try booting on your laptop screen but add these to the kernel line. nomodeset nouveau.noaccel=1

Will the nouveau driver have any effect on my system? I have Intel graphics.