I suspect that the issue I am having is due to some packages or daemons either starting when they shouldn't, or not starting when they should, but I have no idea what they may be, or whether I was responsible for a change made or not.

It's now been several months, but I can no longer simply boot S or boot 3 to go into single user or run level 3. When I do, I never see anything at all, no login prompt, no #, nothing at all. Naturally this presents a problem when using smxi in the usual way.

There is a workaround: boot into normal run level 5, then back down to other init levels, then the system console is visible. This clearly implies to me that something is started by run level 5 that is not getting started elsewhere, but I have no idea what it is, (or what I may have changed, if it was, in fact, me).

Any wisdom on why I wouldn't be able to see a console unless I first go all the way to multi-user graphical interface, run level 5?
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brian if it helps, on my thinkpad, when /dev are initiated i get a flash on the screen like the resolution is changing. after that the most times it gets in to a blank screen and i have to wait until slim shows up, sometimes when the flash appears it gets in to normal boot text and i can see what is happening. if i boot in to init3 and that flash doesn't show the text when it finishes to boot the system, the tty will be blank. your solution works for me as well. if i use ctrl+alt+f1 i see like a flash and distorted text(first line) really quick and then i see the tty. i suspect it is a video driver problem.


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Hi dark-d! I do not see those symptoms; my graphics driver is just the Intel Xorg driver and it works fine. If I go to run level 5, the GUI always comes up cleanly.

You did give me a thought, though: perhaps the font set that is selected isn't the right one, but even then, you'd think that I'd at least see something. But then again, as I say, when I first go to run level 5, then go BACK to run level 3 or another run level, THEN things work, so to me, that indicates that something in the PROCESS is set up wrong, rather than missing a driver or a font. Wouldn't that be the case?

So I'm leaning more toward understanding what components need to be in place in order to see the console if booting immediately to single user mode or run level 3.
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intel xorg driver has been having a chain of problems, I don't follow it since I don't use it, and there's nothing that can be fixed by me anyway, but I have been seeing a lot of intel driver issues lately.

At some point, not apparently in my life time, foss programmers and projects are going to realize that in the real world, constant abi and api churn will constantly break things, forcing constant catch-up, forcing burnout and just walking away.

See Adobe dropping linux flash support for a recent example of this reality.

With dev time and effort now splitting between wayland and xorg, for the same relatively tiny userbase, expect such things to get worse, not better.
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So you'd lean on the side that would suggest that the problem I am having is somehow related to the lack of adequate support for the Intel graphics driver? (It's the console support that is giving me problems, not the graphical display).

I suppose that could be the case, but that's confusing to me, because the scenario in which I encounter a problem is when I simply use the system console (or attempt to do so) at boot time, by starting either as S or 3, rather than the default 5. What's doubly curious about it is that if I first start at run level 5, then go BACK to run level 3 or S, then it behaves as I would expect it to behave.
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I've been seeing this console issue for years, it was the hallmark of fglrx for many years, I'm seeing right now in nvidia at times too.

I'd say overly rapid abi/api changes in xorg driver and way too fast release cycle, which has been the case over the last years, is forcing breaks, hardware configurations can't be tested.

I once was in the microsoft build labs, which are filled with many many computers, and each night's build of windows would be test run on live real hardware to detect bugs and failures. It's a virtual certainty that no core free desktop projects do anything remotely close to that. So stuff is going to fail, especially if things change too fast to let normal bug reports filter back in.
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Thanks, Harold. At least I can rest that I didn't do something to mess up the system, nor did one of our tools create a scenario to cause this. What's doubly frustrating is that I don't see this in 100% of my environments. For example, I have my own custom Debian Sid system, antiX, in core and base configurations, SimplyMEPIS, semplice, and siduction, and I only see this occasionally; (I think Debian Sid is where I've spotted it most often).
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Right, sid is the latest xorg stuff, at least until the wheezy freeze upcoming soon.

However, keep in mind, drivers can fail based on specific chipsets, which is why increasingly rapid abi/api changes in core systems are going to break things, and there's going to be a trail of hardware that trickles off and out of good support.

It's just how it is, just look at amd/ati, they just dropped support in fglrx for all new cards, like hd2xxx through hd4xxx which are essentially current generation cards in retail channels.

I don't, again, follow intel xorg driver, but I have been seeing a lot of threads here and there about intel driver issues.

Best to check forums like siduction for up to the minute support and issues, but again, it's specific chipsets, not intel, amd, or nvidia per se.

By the way, unrelated, but kudos to siduction, they are forking ceni, which removed the very last reason to use aptosid for anything.
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Thanks again, Harold! I ditched aptosid a long time ago now, and I use mostly Sid, antiX core, and SimplyMEPIS, all of which work with smxi. I grabbed siduction and installed it on one of my systems, but it happens to be a system that I put in our den, which means I leave it mostly for my Mom to use (and I set up Lubuntu on it for her, because if I leave this place, I am thinking of installing Lubuntu on her older system and I wanted to make sure she could manage it; so far, she's done well with it; could have set her up with antiX, but I've already had her test 2-3 distributions, that might be stretching it for an 84 year old who uses Email and little else).

BTW, aptosid guys have had at least one redeeming attribute: they seem to spot stuff that's gone bad in Sid, and anticapitalista monitors their stuff and puts issues in his Sid upgraders section on the antiX forum. The siduction guys are 100% more agreeable than the aptosid guys, but they still have a passion for the "all free" stuff. For me, I say, "Use whatever works for you" - for me, freedom is also about freedom of choice, using free software, using commercial software, using a blend of whatever works. I do prefer free software, but I'm much more pragmatic about it than either Mr. Stallman or our easily excitable German friends! ;-)
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