Re: No console

[Jim Bernard <jbernard%mines.edu@localhost>]

On Thu, Apr 06, 2017 at 09:54:47AM +0100, Robert Swindells wrote:
> 
> ... or I can comment it out of the kernel config.
> 
> That isn't an answer to the question that I am asking.
> 
> At some point when I am doing cycles of taking out other unused device
> entries from the config and trying out the resulting kernel the console
> will stop displaying text. I can't see a pattern to what causes the
> change.
> 
> I just wanted to know if anyone else was seeing similar behaviour.

Yes, I've been having the same problem, also with -current amd64 kernels.
It occurs on both a Dell Optiplex 960 with an Intel E8400 cpu and an Nvidia
GeForce 9300 GE card that nouveau doesn't handle (so I use no drm in the
kernel) and on a Lenovo T61 laptop with an Intel T9300 cpu and i965GM
graphics that drmkms doesn't handle (so I use legacy drm in the kernel).
On both machines, there is text from the boot code, but none from the kernel
or any userland programs that run during multiuser startup, including getty.
There is a cursor, and it moves occasionally, but no text is printed.  If I
type blindly, I can log in (still no text printed) and start X, which does
correctly generate its usual display.

FWIW, there is text printed by drmkms kernels on both machines, but both
machines fail to finish booting with drmkms.  (That failure, of course, is
a different issue.)

The most-recent no-drm kernel I have that works on the Optiplex was built
from -current updated 201702110025Z (7.99.59), and the oldest no-drm kernel
I have that prints no text was built from -current updated 201702130335Z
(7.99.59).  So there's about a 2-day window during which that particular
problem must have been introduced.

I do get successful boots with normal console text printout on a Lenovo
Yoga 460 laptop with -current GENERIC amd64 kernels, but X doesn't work
at all on that machine.

-- 
Jim