Hi,

I got only black screen on my laptop Lenovo w500 booting to your kernel linux-image-2.6.35-4.dmz.2-liquorix-amd64_2.6.35-13_amd64.

$ lspci | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Mobility Radeon HD 3650

Same kernel running fine on my other machine

regards

mira
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can you boot to terminal? You may need fglrx driver there, which you can install with sgfxi easily. However, if you only get a true literal black screen after kernel starts, hard to say, but that's not common.

One of the problems with debian using init 2 for all service starts is that it's hard to fix issues when x fails to start since you can't just boot to init 2 or 3 with no x. You can fix this problem yourself by changing the default desktop/x start runlevel to 3 or 5, but only if you can see something in terminal.

usually when people say all black there's actually a small white cursor top left corner, which almost always means that x failed to start due to some issue.

With new xorg, you're often best off just deleting /etc/X11/xorg.conf then trying to start x again, either with fglrx or radeon or radeonhd.

all depends on what you mean when you say all black. and when it becomes all black.

My guess is you can boot to single user mode, init 1, from grub, fine.

If you can, you can start networking, then install sgfxi, then install fglrx and see if x starts, after deleting xorg.conf or mv to something else. sgfxi will remake a simple xorg.conf for you.
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Hi,

thank you for quick reply. Sorry I should be more precise here.
"Black screen" in my case mean "white horizontal stripe" which later disappear and than I have really black screen (no cursor).
It really looks like x problem not problem of kernel itself.
I also can hear beep which I normally hear for log-in screen ... so I am quite sure kernel boots otherwise normally, just x are broken.
I can't get to terminal ... Ctrl+Alt+F1-F6 giving same black screen with "white horizontal stripe"
I removed xorg.conf (using my older kernel) and later also xorg.conf~ to let this file be generated again, but without success.
I've checked again with old kernel and xorg.conf wasn't created.

regards

mira
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I am now seeing xorg radeon again failing on ctrl alt f1, it appears to share many of the long time fglrx bugs.

Follow my advice and see if it works, in other words, install fglrx

and if that doesn't work, try: sgfxi -N radeonhd

to install the radeonhd driver.

since this is an x issue, you have to start the system without x, and, to repeat, this is why I have never understood why Debian starts everything in runlevel two when it's much safer to start x in a higher run level, but to have a regular non x run level to login into easily for exactly this reason. And not just single user mode, where not everything is running.
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Installing fglrx driver package solved this problem ;)

Sorry I didn't realize that fglrx packages are in official repo.

Thank you a lot for help

BTW how to use sgfxi and where to get it?

$ sgfxi -N radeonhd
bash: sgfxi: command not found

regards

mira
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To install sgfxi:
As root do:
cd /usr/local/bin
wget -Nc smxi.org/sgfxi
chmod +x sgfxi
sgfxi

Do sgfxi -h for the help menu.
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Hi,

I installed sgfxi which is really powerful tool and installed fglrx on my laptop.

fglrx worked fine ... than tried radeonhd and having black screen again.

But now I even can't get x even with older kernels :(

I tried radeonhd on my other machine and got this (Xorg.0.log):
(EE) FATAL: RadeonHD presently does not work with kernel modesetting (KMS).
Please disable KMS in your kernel.
Installed radeon driver works fine.

Any advice how to fix my laptop?
No x and terminal with linux-image-2.6.35-4.dmz.2-liquorix-amd64_2.6.35-13_amd64

Just terminal with older kernels

regards

mira
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I installed "ati" driver with sgfxi on my laptop.
"ati" driver seems to be only non-problematic solution.

"radeondh" not working at all , probably because KMS kernel setting
"radeon" not works on laptop, works on my second machine bit better than "fglrx"
"fglrx" works on laptop, but "black screen" when switching to terminal or log out, works on second machine, but worse than "radeon"

laptop
$ lspci | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Mobility Radeon HD 3650

second machine
$ lspci | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon X1650 XT (Primary) (PCIE)

regards

mira
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fglrx does not support cards under hd2000, so your X1650 XT is only supported by radeon.

I didn't know that radeonhd doesn't support kms. I guess the radeonhd project really is being deprecated.

the ati xorg driver is just a wrapper for the radeon/older ati drivers, and that's why it worked.

radeon doesn't seem to support hD 3650 which is no surprise, given that several radeon devs were laid off by ati, and writing advanced card drivers is not something that is easy to do.

You can't get x with older kernels because radeon requires firmware in the kernel, which damentz/liquorix provides, you might have to install it manually for debian kernels, don't ask me what package I don't know.

sometimes with new xorg it's best to just remove the xorg.conf file completely if you are using the xorg drivers and let xorg handle it all, I've seen cases where that was the only way to get x working.
I don't understand your question though, if fglrx works on your laptop with ati+liquorix why do you then make it not work? Just use what works, I can't make xorg radeon drivers work or not work for you.

I can't help you with older kernels, why are you trying things that don't work when you can use things that do?
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Actually there wasn't question in my last post ...
It was just report what is working and what not.

Many thanks for your help and explanation

regards

mira
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