[mythtv-users] New Mythbuntu 14.04 battle with nvidia boot up

[Craig Huff]

On Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 3:42 PM, Kingsley Turner <krt at krt.com.au> wrote:
> I'm just guessing here (I had to back-port to 12.04 after 14.04 failed on my
> nvidia 9400)
> But I would try completely disabling any sort of framebuffer / GUI boot
> splash.
>
> I notice that 14.04 has framebuffer GUI splash/logo stuff, and 12.04 does
> not, it's pure text.
>
> Even with just the install CD/DVD I got some screen corruption just before
> the framebuffer GUI started.
> (With both Mythbuntu 12.04.04, and 14.04.01)
> So .. have you tried FRAMEBUFFER="n"  (or whatever it takes to turn this
> sucker off).
>
> cheers,
> -kt


Been beating on this problem and I've not made any progress.

I tried using FRAMEBUFFER=n, but that didn't seem to do anything.

I have tried searching for pointers in webpages on grub configuration
that might help and googled "linux nvidia boot freeze", but none of
the following suggested actions helped (not necessarily tried in this
order):
    1) twiddle with vmalloc=nnn[KMG]B (instead of default 128MB) in
linux boot command line (or if it had worked in /etc/default/grub as
an addition to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" line.
    2) twiddle with the screen resolution in /etc/default/grub with
various values for parameters GRUB_GFXMODE=nnnxmmm, and
GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=nnnxmmm, including 640x480, 1280x1024.
    3) remove nouveau driver
    4) remove nvidia driver, reboot, reinstall nvidia driver (nvidia-304).

The only thing I can say for sure is that given these lines from
/boot/grub/grub.cfg:

    ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
    function gfxmode {
        set gfxpayload="${1}"
        if [ "${1}" = "keep" ]; then
            set vt_handoff=vt.handoff=7
        else
            set vt_handoff=
        fi
    }
   set linux_gfx_mode=1280x1024
   export linux_gfx_mode

then these lines (which follow immediately after the above) always
results in the system freezing on cold boot before anything gets
logged in /var/log/<anything>:

    menuentry 'Ubuntu' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu
--class os $menuentry_id_option
'gnulinux-simple-f559581d-fb44-482a-8751-ce00ea705bd6' {
            recordfail
            load_video
            gfxmode $linux_gfx_mode
            insmod gzio
            insmod part_msdos
            insmod ext2
            set root='hd0,msdos1'
            if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
              search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root
--hint-bios=hd0,msdos1 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos1
--hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos1  f559581d-fb44-482a-8751-ce00ea705bd6
            else
              search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root
f559581d-fb44-482a-8751-ce00ea705bd6
            fi
            linux   /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-37-generic
root=UUID=f559581d-fb44-482a-8751-ce00ea705bd6 ro  quiet splash
$vt_handoff
            initrd  /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-37-generic
}

and choosing the following menu entry will always succeed (with manual
intervention to hit return a couple of times in the boot process):

    menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.13.0-37-generic (recovery mode)'
--class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os
$menuentry_id_option
'gnulinux-3.13.0-37-generic-recovery-f559581d-fb44-482a-8751-ce00ea705bd6'
{
            recordfail
            load_video
            insmod gzio
            insmod part_msdos
            insmod ext2
            set root='hd0,msdos1'
            if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
                search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root
--hint-bios=hd0,msdos1 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos1
--hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos1  f559581d-fb44-482a-8751-ce00ea705bd6
            else
                search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root
f559581d-fb44-482a-8751-ce00ea705bd6
            fi
            echo    'Loading Linux 3.13.0-37-generic ...'
            linux   /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-37-generic
root=UUID=f559581d-fb44-482a-8751-ce00ea705bd6 ro recovery nomodeset
            echo    'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
            initrd  /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-37-generic
}

I'd hate to spend money on a new video card just to find out that
didn't fix the problem, but I'm about out of other ideas to try.
Seems like there ought to be a way to get this system to run with a
newer version of Mythbuntu since it works perfectly (albeit with
outdated features and security) on the old version (Mythbuntu 10.04
with _no_ updates to kernel or MythTV).

Any more suggestions I can try?

--
Craig.