Computer freezes at login [solved]

Ran.Rutenberg · n00b Joined: 23 Mar 2007 Posts: 27

Hi,

I got a new laptop and installed Gentoo on it. After rebooting the system for the first time thru the install, I can enter the password for the luks partition and the loading keeps going untill it reaches the login (still console). However, at this point the computer freezes. I tried also with the recovery option and it made no difference.
I'm using the distribution kernel with no modifications.

I'm not sure how even to begin finding out what causes the freeze.
Here is a picture of the screen at the time of freeze:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/aVsZm1yHU1KVvg3TA

Hope someone will have an idea,

Ran

sMueggli · Guru Joined: 03 Sep 2022 Posts: 374

Why do you think, that the system freezes?

Is the keyboard working?

Ran.Rutenberg · n00b Joined: 23 Mar 2007 Posts: 27

The keyboard works because I could enter the password for the luks partition.
I think it is the computer and not the keyboard because the cursor stops blinking.

Perhaps I should say that when I installed gentoo, I had to use the cached version of the kernel on the live usb because the regular one did not load.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2023 2:35 pm Post subject:

Ran.Rutenberg,

Can you try an external USB keyboard.
It looks like the kernel may be missing a piece of the keyboard driver.

Everything else looks good.

The keyboard driver used to read your LUKS pass phrase need not be the one in use now.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Ran.Rutenberg · n00b Joined: 23 Mar 2007 Posts: 27

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, I do not have an external keyboard available.
Do you think there is another way to check it?

The cursor stops blinking at the login prompt even if I do not press any button

Ran.Rutenberg · n00b Joined: 23 Mar 2007 Posts: 27

And if it was a keyboard issue, wouldn't it also affect the Gentoo liveUSB?

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2023 3:18 pm Post subject:

Ran.Rutenberg,

Maybe. The liveUSB has a fully modular kernel, so if it works there, the right modules are being loaded.

When you use the liveUSB kernel and initrd in your own install, there are several module loading mechanisms provided.
All I can say for sure is that the environment is different .. so maybe.

Long shot.

Have you set up Xorg yet?
The system may have switched to a broken Xorg on a different VT, leaving you at the now inactive console VT.
That's only an option if you have set up Xorg to start at boot.

Is setting up sshd an option?
That would allow a remote log in to get logs.
To do that, you need a working network interface and your image says that dhcpcd could not find any interfaces.

If logging is set up, when you boot with the liveUSB and mount your root filesystem at /mnt/gentoo, there may be some useful logs in /mnt/gentoo/var/log/*
/mnt/gentoo/var/log/dmesg would be good to see.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Ran.Rutenberg · n00b Joined: 23 Mar 2007 Posts: 27

Thanks.
The xorg option is an interesting possibility. I probably have xorg as I used a plasma desktop profile.
I will also try getting the logs out.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2023 6:01 pm Post subject:

Ran.Rutenberg,

If you have not explicitly installed Xorg, you don't have it.
Its not required to run a GUI only to display the output of the GUI.

That may sound odd but X was designed at the outset to be "network transparent"i In the early days of X, that was the normal use case.
Run the applications on one system and display the output on another. That still works today.
As its a design feature, if you want to display the GUI on the same system as it runs on, you need all the bits.
The display part is not pulled in by anything else.
The two parts still communicate over the network, even if the system is not on a network. :)
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Ran.Rutenberg · n00b Joined: 23 Mar 2007 Posts: 27

So from the kern.log I can see that basically the kernel is not frozen as a few minutes after everything else I can see an event about the lid closure (I closed it after it froze).

Using the liveUSB several times now, I can see that it freezes sometimes as well while loading, but at least I can do a soft poweroff with the power button instead of a long press.

Ran.Rutenberg · n00b Joined: 23 Mar 2007 Posts: 27

I tried switching to Systemd using a new install. Now the computer freezes before getting to the login, but now I get a more useful error:

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2023 9:31 am Post subject:

Ran.Rutenberg,

You have an Optimus graphics system. Ignore the nVidia GPU for now.

You probably have the stable kernel, which in 5.15.x at the time of writing. Its fairly old an has only ever had bug fixes and security patches.
That's what stable means.

Try the testing kernel. Even if you force the probe of your Intel GPU, it may not work.

That message from the kernel will have been there with OpenRC too. It will have scrolled off the screen.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Ran.Rutenberg · n00b Joined: 23 Mar 2007 Posts: 27

Thank you very much NeddySeagoon!
Using kernel 6.1 gets me to the login screen.