Re: [regression?] Sometime (often) X come out blank (black screen)on cold boot - Intel chipset

From: Justin Madru
Date: Wed Jun 11 2008 - 00:33:41 EST


Romano Giannetti wrote:
I just opened this: http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10892 . I
think itÅ a regression, but (read the description) I am not so sure, so
I checked regression but I have not blocked Rafael's metabug.

Latest working kernel version: 2.6.25
Earliest failing kernel version: After 2.6.25, exatcly don't know, probably
2.6.26-rc3
Distribution:Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy
Hardware Environment: toshiba U305 intel-based laptop, see
http://bugzilla.kernel.org/attachment.cgi?id=16067&action=view
Software Environment:xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.2.1-1ubuntu12, see also
http://bugzilla.kernel.org/attachment.cgi?id=16066&action=view
Problem Description:

Sometime, on cold boot (after the laptop has been shut off), when the screen
switch from the Ubuntu startup to gdm, the screen goes blank. Forever.
Rebooting (warm) with the same kernel cures it, sometime. If I reboot 2.6.25 it
cures it everytime.

Otherwise, the system seems to be working.

It was difficult to see because I almost never do a cold boot, the laptop is
either sleeping (s2ram) or on, or (warm) rebooted when I test a new kernel.

Helps / tricks to gather more data when it happens are welcome.

Seems like the same bug I reported:
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15602

Can you confirm, so Rafael Wysocki can mark your report http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10892 as a dup of http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10235.

Does disabling the boot splash fix the problem? You could also try disabling gdm and starting X manually. When I disable usplash it fixes the problem.

Are you sure kernel 2.6.25 doesn't also have the problem? Because I first saw the issue in 2.6.25-rc1. I tried doing a git bisect and came up with 8f4d37ec073c17e2d4aa8851df5837d798606d6f as the first bad.
sched: high-res preemption tick
Use HR-timers (when available) to deliver an accurate preemption tick.
You could try git bisecting the bug, but you might run into problems. When I got down to the last ~80 commits the compiled kernel corrupted my real time clock! So, I'm not 100% sure the the commit that git reported was the _exact_ first bad, but fairly close (that, and the blank screen doesn't happen all the time). But if your git bisect returns the same or similar commit we might be able to narrow down the possibilities.

Jesse,
It seems the problem might be related to usplash. In each reported case Ubuntu and usplash were used, and disabling usplash (at least for me) seems to fix the problem. Could there be some timing feature that usplash uses that isn't guaranteed/changed with some optimizations of CFS (or HR-timers) that went into 2.6.25? I've cc'ed SaÃvann Carignan, who seems to be the most active contributer to usplash.

Justin Madru

--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/