Problem Booting Sabayon DVD

[BHReach]

Trying to boot Sabayon DVD with new hardware.

Asus M5A97 mobo

AMD FX-4100 CPU

AMD Radeon HD6570 Graphic Adapter.

I first tried to boot KDE AMD64 weekly 4/22/2012. X server won't load, get this error in /var/log/Xorg.0.log:

[ 53.361] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/radeon_drv.so
[ 53.361] (II) [KMS] drm report modesetting isn't supported.
[ 53.361] (II) GPU only supported with KMS, using vesa instead.
[ 53.361] (II) UnloadModule: "radeon"
[ 53.361] (II) Unloading radeon
[ 53.361] (EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.
[ 53.361]
Fatal server error:
[ 53.361] no screens found
[ 53.361]

Next tried Sabayon 8 XFCE AMD64. It boots OK and I do not see any problems.

Next tried Sabayon 8 KDE AMD64. It boots, the X server comes up and it looks like it will be OK but before KDE finishes loading the mouse cursor freezes. I went behind the computer to unplug the USB mouse and plug it back in but when I got back to the screen, the computer had rebooted.

Anyone have useful information to help resolve this problem?

[BHReach]

I tried Weekly 5/2/12 Awesome (X86 and AMD64), E17 (X86 and AMD64), LXDE (AMD64), all give the same error I got with KDE weekly.

I tried Gnome AMD64 and it works OK, I installed it to test it and there seem to be no problems.

I don't understand the problem here? Why is the X Server configuration different for the different desktops?

I am downloading Sabayon_Linux_CoreCDX_DAILY_amd64 to see if it works.

[juan678]

I have a similar problem. Hope somebody can help us.

[B3rtm3n]

Did you do checksum? I noticed some Linux distributions deliver for some reason, due to their sort of compression used, 'error sensitive' ISO's.
For some reason this issue for me got solved when using torrent instead!

Daily downloads are better because each version is just a snapshot and if you download and install 8 the updates/upgrades are sometimes about the same size as the the install dvd.
Daily downloads saves you updating / upgrading afterwards.

[BHReach]

Did you do checksum?

I don't think it is bad disks. I tried all the Sabayon 8 ISOs acquired via bitttorent and 8 Weekly ISOs, both 64 bit and 32 bit. Only the Gnome and XFCE load the Xserver. The others give the error posted above. Sabayon does not configure the Radeon open source driver correctly for my hardware and appears to switch to the VESA fb in an inappropriate way so I get no working X server.

I tried 3 other distro's live CD/DVD and they all generate a working X server.

I first tried Puppy Linux (current version called Slacko-5.3.3 because it is based on Slackware) It has an X configuration wizard so you can try various setting if the default does not work. I could not get the Xorg Radeon driver to work but as soon as I selected the VESA FB, the X server came right up.

Next I tried PC LINUX OS, I have used it in the past and it is excellent at hardware detection and configuration. It booted up with the X server working. It used the proprietary ATI fglrx driver. It also installed the ATI Catalyst software to manage video. While it is very good at dealing with the hardware, it is also very slow. It must be trying many different thing to get the hardware properly configured.

Finally I tried Gentoo live dvd AMD64 multilib 2012.1. It booted up with the X server working. It appears to be using the Xorg Radeon driver and has it correctly configured for my hardware. I could not get my usb wifi adapter (ath9k, which works fine with the others including Sabayon) to work, dmesg has an error that it could not find the firmware (htc_9072.fw) which makes no sense since the firmware is in /lib/firmware where it belongs.

The X server problem appears to be specific to Sabayon.

[anomaly65]

weird option, but I've found some intel, nvidia, and amd chipsets (ehci issues) really stop complaining with "--noapic" added to the boot line at load time. F5 for options and just add --noapic and give it a shot.

[BHReach]

weird option, but I've found some intel, nvidia, and amd chipsets (ehci issues) really stop complaining with "--noapic" added to the boot line at load time. F5 for options and just add --noapic and give it a shot.

That has no effect on the problem.

[BHReach]

I have discovered part of the problem. Booting Live Core CDX.

If I delete the xorg.conf file:

Code: Select all

rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf

then

Code: Select all

startx

brings up twm.

Code: Select all

startfluxbox

crashes with error message -> cannot connect to the X server but if I run it in twm, fluxbox comes up; however, the menu is fubar because it lists many programs that are not available.

If I run xdm, the login screen appears but I cannot login.

I installed KDE (AMD84-K.iso) on the HD using the text installer. Problem is similar to Core CDX. I have to delete /etc/X11/xorg.conf every time I boot. startx brings up twm. startkde cannot connect to the X server. Trying to run xdm or kdm crashes the system. Running startkde from inside twm starts to load kde but eventually crashes the system.

Since a lot of people are not having this problem, something is configured incorrectly for my hardware.

[anomaly65]

Depends a lot on the livedvd default installed desktop software too.

Might it be the the full on eye candy factor of the kde version of sabayon. It's tuned up well enough to make every other distro user I've run into ask "woah, what is that???", but needs a happy driver/board combo to get it right. Can't say I enjoyed my experience last night switching to from an nvidia card to a new AMD/ATI card, although it did work with a little effort.

Regardless, I've always kept a "good copy" of xorg.conf hidden away just to avoid the hassles.

You can always install one of the other flavors, and simply "equo install kde-meta" and get 90% there right away.

good luck!