[mythtv-users] Need help getting new install of Mythbuntu 12.04 to boot successfully

Craig Huff huffcslists at gmail.com
Tue Mar 11 20:18:47 UTC 2014


First, yes, I know this is a rather tardy migration, but I've been pretty
happy with Mythbuntu 10.04. However, it is time I got ready for migration
to 14.04 when it comes out and I doubt I'll be able to get there in one
hop, so...

Hardware consists of ASUS A8N-SLI Premium mobo with Athlon CPU, nvidia GeF
7300 GS, DVI monitor, a pair of Hauppauge PVR-500 cards, and several disks
;-).  Oh, and it shouldn't matter, but there's an Adaptec SCSI PCI card
installed with nothing attached at the moment.

I have a {slightly dusty -- I've been fixin to get ready to think about
this for awhile now ;-( } copy of the live CD for Mythbuntu 12.04 which I
booted up to "demo" mode and then invoked the installation.  When the
install completed, I shut the system down and removed the CD.  So far so
good.

My problem (at this point) is that the system hangs on boot.  Here's the
typical sequence:

System is powered off.
Turn power on.
BIOS screens come and go.
Grub menu appears with countdown or not (may be hidden behind stripes --
see next).
Screen changes to rather wide (half-inch -ish) black and white alternating
stripes or Mythbuntu splash screen appears and red lights scroll for a bit.
System locks up.
Wait for 5+ minutes with no improvement.
Hit reset button.
BIOS screens come and go.
Grub menu appears with no countdown.
Select normal option.
System comes up.

If I then do a reboot -- e.g. sudo shutdown -r now
then it starts over but gets the same results as powering the system off.

Before I forget, I found that if it's at the Grub menu and I switch to the
command line (enter "c") and attempt to run vbeinfo, then the screen goes
blank and the system again goes to la la land, never to return without
hitting the reset button or cycling power.

The only thing changing between my rock steady 10.04 system and the testing
12.04 system is the boot drive -- I remove the 10.04 HD and replace it with
a similar (reliable and tested) HD.  Both are ATA/IDE drives.  I even tried
leaving all the recording drives disconnected (all SATA), but that didn't
change anything.

I described variations with stripes, which it did to start with, and with
the Mythbuntu splash screen that I got after making changes that I hoped
would fix the boot problem since I suspected it was (is) video related.  I
followed the directions at
http://www.randomlinuxstuff.tk/2013/05/fix-ubuntu-boot-screen-after-installing.htmland
I copied my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file from the "old" system.  The
xorg.conf file didn't help, but it didn't hurt either, so I left it in.
The hints in the URL fixed the lack of a splash screen on another (Kubuntu)
system, so I did the same thing here, and now I get the Mythbuntu splash
screen, but it still hangs on boot.

I didn't find any hints searching through the files in /var/log -- no
surprise, since I think it hangs before the kernel gets control.

I can provide other details, but this is getting pretty long already, so
I'll stop here.

Can anyone give me a clue where to start chasing down what hangs the system
up on boot?

--
Craig.
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