[Bug 701060] Re: Boot failure

[Steve Langasek]

On Sat, May 28, 2011 at 04:07:02PM -0000, peterzay wrote:
> Before trying your suggestions, have you reviewed Bug #425979 which
> documents problems with both SHIFT and ESC for Grub2 on certain
> machines?

I'm familiar with that issue; it's specific to key handling during early
boot (bootloader, before the kernel has started) and should not affect
keyhandling under plymouth.

> As for orange vs red animated dots, that's probably screen colour
> balance and subjective interpretation.

> What do you mean by: Do Alt+Left, Alt+Right, or Alt+Fn keys work at this
> point?  Do you mean LeftAlt+Fn or RightAlt+Fn (n=1,2,3,...,12)?  Please
> clarify.

These keys should allow you to switch VTs, away from plymouth to either a
blank screen or (possibly) a login prompt.  This is LeftAlt + the Function
keys (primarily F1-F7), yes.

On Sat, May 28, 2011 at 04:14:15PM -0000, peterzay wrote:
> Are these procedures safe on a production machine that just has to work
> at all times?

>  - if logged in, log out
>  - switch to VT1 with Ctrl+Alt+F1
>  - log in as root (or log in as admin user and run sudo -s, if you don't have a root password)
>  - run 'service gdm stop' to shut down X
>  - run 'service plymouth start' to start the plymouth daemon
>  - run 'plymouth splash; sleep 30; plymouth quit' as a single commandline

There is always some risk when debugging a process that works with the
kernel framebuffer (as plymouth does) that you will lock up the display or
the whole system and have to reboot to restore access.  And of course you
won't be able to keep any desktop applications running if you've logged out
and stopped gdm.

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
slangasek at ubuntu.com                                     vorlon at debian.org

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/701060

Title:
  Boot failure

Status in “plymouth” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  Occasionally, 10.04 won't boot at all or hesitate.  CTRL-ALT-DEL may
  help, but sometimes even that won't work.  I boot once daily.  The
  problem happens 1-2 times per week.  Should I upgrade to 10.10 to
  solve this?

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
  Package: gnome (not installed)
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-27.49-generic 2.6.32.26+drm33.12
  Uname: Linux 2.6.32-27-generic i686
  Architecture: i386
  Date: Mon Jan 10 10:13:31 2011
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release i386 (20100429)
  ProcEnviron:
   LANG=en_US.UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  SourcePackage: meta-gnome2
  --- 
  Architecture: i386
  DefaultPlymouth: /lib/plymouth/themes/ubuntu-logo/ubuntu-logo.plymouth
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release i386 (20100429)
  MachineType: LENOVO 2746CTO
  Package: plymouth 0.8.2-2ubuntu2.2
  PackageArchitecture: i386
  ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-31-generic root=UUID=17572f50-ecf1-466d-a20e-0ded10d25e56 ro
  ProcEnviron:
   LANG=en_US.UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  ProcFB: 0 inteldrmfb
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-31.61-generic 2.6.32.32+drm33.14
  Tags: lucid
  TextPlymouth: /lib/plymouth/themes/ubuntu-text/ubuntu-text.plymouth
  Uname: Linux 2.6.32-31-generic i686
  UserGroups: adm audio cdrom dialout dip fax floppy fuse lpadmin netdev plugdev sambashare tape vboxusers video
  dmi.bios.date: 05/29/2009
  dmi.bios.vendor: LENOVO
  dmi.bios.version: 6AET58WW
  dmi.board.asset.tag: ATN12345678901234567
  dmi.board.name: 2746CTO
  dmi.board.vendor: LENOVO
  dmi.board.version: LENOVO 6AET58WW
  dmi.chassis.type: 10
  dmi.chassis.vendor: LENOVO
  dmi.chassis.version: LENOVO 6AET58WW
  dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnLENOVO:bvr6AET58WW:bd05/29/2009:svnLENOVO:pn2746CTO:pvrThinkPadSL500:rvnLENOVO:rn2746CTO:rvrLENOVO6AET58WW:cvnLENOVO:ct10:cvrLENOVO6AET58WW:
  dmi.product.name: 2746CTO
  dmi.product.version: ThinkPad SL500
  dmi.sys.vendor: LENOVO