Liquorix on kubuntu
Waffl3x
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Hey, I recognize that Liquorix is explicitly for debian and ubuntu, nevertheless I was hoping someone might be able to provide some support to me as from what I understand kubuntu is very similar if not effectively the same to ubuntu.
:: Code ::
waffl3x@Flex-desktop-linux:~$ inxi -b
System:    Host: Flex-desktop-linux Kernel: 5.4.0-52-generic x86_64 bits: 64
           Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.18.5 Distro: Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS (Focal Fossa)
Machine:   Type: Desktop Mobo: ASRock model: X370 Taichi serial: <superuser/root required>
           UEFI: American Megatrends v: P6.40 date: 07/28/2020
CPU:       8-Core: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X type: MT MCP speed: 2200 MHz min/max: 2200/3600 MHz
Graphics:  Device-1: NVIDIA GP104 [GeForce GTX 1080] driver: nvidia v: 450.80.02
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.8 driver: nvidia
           unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,nouveau,vesa resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
           OpenGL: renderer: GeForce GTX 1080/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 450.80.02
Network:   Device-1: Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3168NGW [Stone Peak] driver: iwlwifi
           Device-2: Intel I211 Gigabit Network driver: igb
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 4.09 TiB used: 52.31 GiB (1.2%)
Info:      Processes: 327 Uptime: 19m Memory: 15.57 GiB used: 2.62 GiB (16.8%) Shell: bash
           inxi: 3.0.38


Let me know if you need anything else, thanks in advanced.

edit:
:: Code ::

waffl3x@Flex-desktop-linux:~$ cat /proc/version     
Linux version 5.4.0-52-generic (buildd@lgw01-amd64-060) (gcc version 9.3.0 (Ubuntu 9.3.0-17ubuntu1~20.04)) #57-Ubuntu SMP Thu Oct 15 10:57:00 UTC 2020

I noticed inxi appeared to be missing the GCC version, I believe that this is it. In addition I realized another thread stated Liquorix is using GCC 10 now, so I have a hunch I would have to update it.
I also just realized I never actually stated what problem I am having, it installed fine and would not boot. it appeared to boot fine, then locked up without throwing me to a terminal, if I remember correctly I simply had a blinking cursor.
I believe that this was caused by using the wrong version of GCC when installing Liquorix


edit2:
I was under the impression that I did not need to purge dkms as I am already on non free drivers, but it occurred to me that assumption was likely wrong, thus I am doing that and going to try again.
If you are on non free drivers at all I believe this is a requirement, not the other way around like I initially thought

edit3:
I have successfully launched with the liquorix kernel, only one monitor is working but it is progress, I suspect it may be because I did sgfxi with gcc-9
Even though this page does not have the updated versions of gcc to use everything on it worked, but I initially skipped it because it seemed old on account of the lack of updated info on gcc.
https://techpatterns.com/forums/about1891.html
I'm going to leave this up for any newbies like me and hopefully they can dodge the pitfalls I tripped in.

edit4:
I did successfully get into a working system, the last step was indeed installing graphics drivers with the correct version of GCC enabled. I have added some notes in italics to hopefully make this post less confusing for anyone reading it looking for support.

The last thing I want to note is I get "Initramfs unpacking failed" but through investigation I learned this is merely a cosmetic bug that exists in this version unrelated to Liquorix. I just want to note to anyone else who was concerned by it that you can safely ignore it and it will continue anyway.[/i]

< Edited by Waffl3x :: Oct 23, 20, 0:12 >

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techAdmin
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The desktop a distro runs is not relevant to kernels and kernel issues, where did you get that idea? Just because people confuse desktop respins with the system base distro, the actual toolchain that is used to build the distro, doesn't mean that the desktop or window manager matter in any real sense when it comes to kernels.

In other words, all the *buntu 20.4 respins are essentially the same distro, just respun to have slightly different display and package set features. 20.4 was probably frozen around 20.2 I'd guess, which makes it about 8 months old. Note that a LTS release, it will get older and older, and more and more out of date, as time goes on.

what matters is the version of the core tools, whether the kernel supports those core tools, or is too new, and graphios driver issues, particularly as in your case, non free drivers. Some of these issues are particularly relevant with frozen pool distros like ubuntu.

The GCC version issue in inxi was updated on I think inxi 3.1.07 due to a change in how kernels 5.8 and newer reported that data. However, in your case, the issue is you not using the right arguments: -bxz - kernel gcc version is an -x option. But it doesn't matter in this case I believe.

I suggest you edit your entire post, get rid of all the red herrings, and just post:

inxi -bxz

and the statement that on install of liquorix, it 'doesn't boot',, but you have to define what that means, does it mean the kernel is in grub options, and when you select it, boot hangs, or does it mean something totally different.

since you are using nvidia non free, it's almost certainly a feilure to generate the nvidia driver for the liquorix kernel, which means, yes it's booting just fine, and then it's crashing on driver load attempt, which is NOT failure to boot, it's a total success at booting, and an xorg driver load failure leading to display failure

it's very difficult to offer support if the words used are all wrong or misleading, the above is my guess however, since that's what the issue usually is. Note that it's not liquorix's job to teach you how to deal with non free graphics driver issues. Nor can or should you expect a dkms driver from the frozen pool will work with a newer kernel, you have to learn this stuff if you want to run liquorix, or any kernel significantly newer than the frozen pool distro kernel.
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Waffl3x
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Hey thanks for replying, I am not sure where you got the idea that I think that the desktop being run is relevant to the kernel, I simply do not understand the full extent of differences between different distros as I am inexperienced. You need to understand that for all I know, there's some major differences that never occurred to me.

You're right about my mistake with inxi, I unfortunately copied what was said in another thread instead of one of the more official threads, that's my bad for sure.

As far as I can tell, even in my inexperience, it was more than just a xorg driver load failure as I was not dropped into a terminal, my keyboard did not appear to connect at all, and I eventually had to cut power to reboot. You are however absolutely correct that my language used was and still is very unhelpful I will attempt to be better about that in the future.
Upon rereading what you said, I now understand you are suggesting it locks because of the graphics driver, which very well could be the case. In the future, how can I better determine the threshold between "didn't boot" and "booted and then crashed"?

I would stress that while you are correct it doesn't need to be your responsibility to better support non-free video drivers, I think it's important to understand that anyone using Liquorix for games is going to essentially need these non-free video drivers. No one is going to obtain Liquorix and then use video drivers that just don't work a fraction as well, it defeats the purpose. (Of course AMD cards are an option, and depending on how the new cards are I might just pick one up.)

In the end I was able to get booted and working with the guides that are available at this time, there was some confusion because of inaccuracy or lack of information but for someone determined it was sufficient. Of course I broke the system somehow while trying to fix something else on another kernel ;) but I plan on simply starting from scratch to fix it anyway so it's not your problem.

I will edit my post to clean it up a bit, but I would prefer to leave it mostly as is so anyone as green as me might avoid the mistakes I made, especially when paired with your criticism of the post.
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techAdmin
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when xorg crashes,you don't end up in a terminal,, you end up with a blank screen, or sometimes, a screen with a blinking single character on it. It depends.

not booting is an extremely specific computing event, it means the operating system failed to boot up, that is, it failed to start.

it can hang after boot, due to other circumstances. or it can boot successfully then xorg crashes due to failed driver load.

The job of a 3rd party kernel like Liquorix is to boot on the systems that support it. It is NOT to enable you to run without really knowing what you are doing non free drivers out of the box. This is what makes liquorix a somewhat expert user kernel for in particular frozen pool ubuntus.

Distinguishing between an actual boot failure, and a driver xorg failure, are critical, because the latter is not a liquorix problem, the former may be.

It's irrelevant what your intention is re using this kernel, if you want to run advanced stuff, you have to learn how to run it, which apparently you have, at least in this case. But note that as 20.4 continues to age, the odds grow less and less that you will get liquorix to run on it.

Note that you still have not really explained what went wrong.

If you boot, and see a black screen, but all the normal lights etc you normally see blinked during the process, and if you can then do ctrl+alt+F1 to a console, for login, that means your xorg driver load failed.

Basically if you don't know the terminology, it's safest to NOT use technical terms, rather describe in english what happened vs what you expected to happen, that is, I restarted, the computer did some stuff for a bit, then there was a black screen but no login.

This is as an aside why I really dislike those gui boot images that hide the start terminal output, which lets you see what is actually going on, it makes debugging issues much harder, and is just a pointless bit of eye candy that makes support much harder.
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damentz
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And a quick addition, considering Ubuntu 20.10 is out now, I highly recommend you upgrade or reinstall to this version and try again afterwards. You'll find that a lot more things will "just work" when a new version of Ubuntu comes out and things stop "just working" as the distribution ages over 6 months or longer.

The above is especially true the more non-free drivers you need. An example is a system using broadcom wireless and nvidia is unlikely to install Liquorix succesfully on an aged version of Ubuntu while an Intel graphics + Intel wireless system will probably install and boot just fine.
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Waffl3x
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Yeah, I've opted to install Kubuntu 20.10 for basically that reason, I realized there's no reason for me to run an LTS system if I intend on staying up to date anyway.

I agree completely about the gui boot images hiding terminal output, I have since figured out how to turn that off and have done so. That's basically what lead me to believe I wasn't even booting up, no screen, keyboard turned off, etc. Before I figured out how to turn off splash and quiet all failures to land at the log in screen looked fairly similar to me, I'm very glad I have that solved now as it was frustrating for me too.

I do believe I noted what happened, in the end it was first GCC version mismatch (although I don't completely understand why that matters as I was under the impression installing Liquorix does not involve any compiling, but perhaps I am wrong there) and secondly GCC version mismatch when installing non-free drivers. (Once again, I'm actually a little confused on why that matters.)

Given what solved it I think my first problem was in fact failure to boot, unfortunately the splash screen makes it very hard to be sure. Thankfully with that turned off I can give much more useful information regarding future problems.
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techAdmin
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gcc that kernel is compiled with must match installed gcc on system to install drivers like non free nvidia, any driver that needs to be compiled. gcc mismatch is one of the core toolchain mismatches that makes trying to run new kernels on frozen pool distros a generally bad idea, along with the stuff damentz mentioned.

Re the splash image, when I first saw that appear, as a support person, I was really mad, because it was just a dumb image which then hid all the debugging and help data that had previously always been visible to all users, and now it requires users take action to remove that to restore what should be default always. Sometimes design should take a backseat to functionality, and this is certainly one of those times.
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damentz
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Regarding GCC mismatch, Liquorix is compiled with the version under the package gcc. If this package updates outside of an update to Liquorix, Liquorix must be rebuilt.

Sometimes these issues are actually due to build cache on my end. I updated my build/deploy scripts so that docker builds local images without any build cache: github.com/damentz/liquorix-package/commit/3a34410a3d30142e9bf1257f05eebcd35c42f4b5
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