Screen goes black (very dark gray) during boot

haimat

Hello all,

I have a problem with my new Gentoo installation. After setting up the system (as described in Gentoo handbook) I configured my kernel-2-6-19-gentoo-r5. After compiling and installing the kernel I set up Grub (without framebuffer) and rebooted. My new kernel starts fine, but after some seconds, my screen goes black (or very very dark gray with a very very dark gray font, so I can see the usual booting text when I look very close to the monitor).

Any ideas what this could be?
A "wrong" kernel setting maybe?

Thanks in advance!
Greetings, Matthias

kershell · n00b Joined: 12 Mar 2007 Posts: 8 Location: Norfolk, UK.

Used to happen to me on a laptop whose display was dying. Does it happen in text mode bootup too. I mean with no xdm or gdm or kdm kicking in to give you a graphical login.

marcossoft

haimat · Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 3:53 pm Post subject:

I did not tried a display manager at alll.
Its a fresh install, I boot directly into text mode...

haimat · Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 4:25 pm Post subject:

UPDATE: I just tried kernel-2.6.17.gentoo-r8 (the same as this machine had before I the new system installation) and the old config, and with that it works fine...

Lupin_the_3rd · Apprentice Joined: 03 Apr 2005 Posts: 168

Hmmmmm

I just tried upgrading from 2.6.18-r4 to 2.6.20-r7 and I'm having exactly the problem you describe. I simply copied my .config file from the old kernel tree to the new and compiled, installed, and rebooted - no other config changes.

Kernel boots just fine, but once init kicks in, the console font changes to a VERY dark gray color. Just barely able to make out the letters on the screen, it's VERY dark. I have a 17" LCD with DVI connection - it's not a monitor problem. I boot back into my trusty old 2.6.18-r4 kernel and all is well.

Edit: X works perfectly fine, it's just the console that becomes super dark. I use runlevel 3 and only startx when I need to use X.

What could cause this weird super-dark font once init starts? Is the newer kernel looking for something different in the /etc/conf.d/consolefont or different file format or something??
_________________
Compaq XP1000 Alpha EV67 667Mhz w/ 2GB ECC
32bit PCI: ATI Radeon 9100 (DRI works!)
32bit PCI: Generic Firewire 400 card
64bit PCI: BCM5703 Gig-E (Compaq NC7771)
64bit PCI: Sil3124 SATA w/ mdadm RAID1 (pair of WD VelociRaptors)

haimat · Posted: Fri May 04, 2007 7:15 am Post subject:

Hi, I don't know what I really did, but after changing some of my kernel settings step by step, I managed to bring the normal light gray font color back to life. So I suggest you try the same, just start from the original configuration and change one parameter at a time ...

Best regards, Matthias

Lupin_the_3rd · Apprentice Joined: 03 Apr 2005 Posts: 168

Hmmm

I think it might be a framebuffer driver issue. You don't happen to be using an nvidia video card, are you??
_________________
Compaq XP1000 Alpha EV67 667Mhz w/ 2GB ECC
32bit PCI: ATI Radeon 9100 (DRI works!)
32bit PCI: Generic Firewire 400 card
64bit PCI: BCM5703 Gig-E (Compaq NC7771)
64bit PCI: Sil3124 SATA w/ mdadm RAID1 (pair of WD VelociRaptors)